Decentralization: Freedom by Diffusion; D. Huff

What has caused our nation's obsession with politics? To fix blame upon the electoral system, or upon the candidates, would be inac curate and overlook the true cause. Such a fixa tion on politics is but one indication of an in creasing drift toward a "Pyramid Society": The Pyramid Society is a culture in which a majority of the people spend most of their time transforming the civil government to the near exclusion of themselves, their families, churches, schools, businesses .... By changing the powers at the top, we are led to believe that there will be a trickle-down ef fect of cultural transformation that will blossom into a better society. The problems that a nation faces, as this approach sees it, are solely political. Change the State, and all of society will change with it. This has been the vision of pagan empires since the building of the tower of Babel. 1 It is easy to see how such a utopian vision produces an unwarranted emphasis on politics.

David C. Huff is chief financial officer of an Atlanta-based manufacturers' representative. More specifically, the philosophy of the Pyr amid Society and its top-down remedies by ne cessity revolve around the concept of central planning. For this reason, it is especially im portant that advocates of freedom understand and apply the principles of decentralization. HistoricalPrecedent The essence of decentralization is a social order characterized by the diffusion of power away from an authoritarian nation-state where politics, economics, and eventually all of life are regulated through the control of a central ized government. By such diffusion, the poten tial tyranny of the Pyramid Society gives way to the freedoms of multiple jurisdictions, self government, and the practical hierarchy of family, community, and local government. The natural appeal of decentralism can be appreciated by examining its rich historical precedents. Throughout history, the disintegra tions of both national governments and totali tarian regimes have been followed by the ap442 THE FREEMAN-NOVEMBER 1988 pearance of a variety of local assemblies which effectively administered societal affairs. After surveying over a dozen twentieth...;centuryillus trations of this phenomenon, one author has perceptively concluded: "It is striking to re read history with eyes opened to the persistence of this tradition, because at once you begin to see the existence of the anti-authoritarian, inde pendent, self-regulating, local community is every bit as basic to the human record as the existence of the centralized, imperial, hierar chical state, and far more ancient, more du rable, and more widespread. "2 The lessons from history are compelling, and none more so than that of the United States.

The decentralist philosophy was a driving force in America's early years, and leaders such as Thomas Jefferson were acutely sensitive to the insidious encroachment of centralism which al ready had begun during their lifetimes. Jef ferson saw in decentralization the spirit of a free society, where each individual would par ticipate in government on a localized, "bottom up" basis; he envisioned a freedom so impor tant that the individual would "let the heart be tom out of his body sooner than his power wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bo naparte. ' ,3 Practicality The repeated emergence of decentralization throughout the centuries should not be consid ered an anomaly. Indeed, decentralism's lon gevity and durability bear strong witness to its practicality. Though interventionists stubbornly claim that the need for centralization of power increases as nations become larger and more complex, it is statist programs that have failed time and again.

One important example of the efficacy of de centralization is in the area of economics. The absence of intervention is integral to the suc cessful operation of the free enterprise system. Under laissez-faire capitalism, a society's economy prospers as individuals pursue the im provement of their well-being through the un hampered functioning of supply and demand coupled with the profitable ventures of entre preneurs. The freedom of choice and diversity of opportunity available in a decentralized free market economy are intensely practical, and become. increasingly so as the society expands - for more complexity produces additional choices and enhances the division of labor. Contrast this with the well-documented and bitter fruits of central planning. As historian Herbert Schlossberg has observed: "The eco nomic results of central direction must, by reason of the central direction alone, be unfa vorable, because the system is formally irra tional. It substitutes preferences of central planners for the estimations based on a price system that reflects both supply and de mand.... the planner's will replaces the ac tion of the market. ' '4 True freedom, social stability, and economic health can be realized only by applying the practical self-government approach of decen tralization.

Future Implications A survey of American history reveals a dis turbing trend toward centralization and a growing ideology of political salvation. To continue down the present path will destroy the freedom of future generations. Clearly, then, one imperative for our future as a free nation is the propagation and applica tion of the precepts of decentralization; they are an inseparable part of the formula for liberty. By replacing the misguided illusion of political salvation with education and action in the areas of personal responsibility, limited government, free enterprise, and the liberty-producing fea tu;res of decentralism, our society can avoid the lethal errors of the past: ' ,[the] pyramids are . . . evidence . . . of the political theory of Egypt. Their silent witness in the desert kingdom of Egypt should remind us that any top-down political structure is doomed to fail."5 0 1. Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart, The Reduction of Christianity (Ft. Worth: Dominion Press, and Atlanta: American Vision, 1988), p.305.

2. Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1980), p. 445. 3. Ibid., p. 450. 4. Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation With American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), pp. 227-8. 5. DeMar and Leithart, op. cit., p. 305.