Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism

You looking to find the "Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism" Good news! You can purchase Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism with secure price and compare to view update price on this product. And deals on this product is available only for limited time.

   

Product Description

Featuring a foreword by Congressman Glen Browder, Politics on a Human Scale examines political decentralization in the United States, from the founding of the republic to the present.

Part of the desirable equilibrium is a sense of proportionality. Some sizes, some amounts, some levels are more appropriate than others. Decentralism is the best political tool to ensure equilibrium, to promote proportionality, and to obtain appropriate scale. Power distribution should be as wide as possible. Government functions should be as close to the people as practicable. In this way, individual human beings are not swallowed by a monstrous Leviathan. Persons are not at the mercy of an impersonal bureaucracy led by the far-away few. Decentralism gives us politics on a human scale. It gives us more democracy within the framework of a republic.

The longest chapters in the book deal with crucial turning points in U.S. history � specifically, when decentralists lost the upper-hand in the two major political parties. Decentralism in our nation runs deep, both intellectually and historically. It also has considerable popular support. Yet today it is a virtual political orphan. In Washington, neither major political party is serious about dispersing power to lower levels of government or to the people themselves. Still, there are dissident politicians and political movements that remain committed to the decentralist principle.

Power needs to be held in check, partly through decentralization, because power holds a great and dangerous attraction for humans. Recognition of this human tendency is the first step in guarding against it and getting back on a better path.

Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism Review

It was my good fortune to read "Politics on a Human Scale" soon after its release. While the book is challenging because of the enormous amount of information it contains, the fascinating narrative and superb writing make the reading experience pleasant. The work should prove especially valuable to educated persons seeking to understand the market for competitive policy making (decentralization) within the context of the American political party system.

As a political scientist with courses on federalism and political parties, I know of no other book that brings the two subjects together so insightfully. The closest work is David Brian Robertson's "Federalism and the Making of America" (2012). Robertson's fine text provides cases that illustrate how United States legislators on both sides of the aisle have used federalism to achieve policy aims on an incremental basis. Taylor, by contrast, provides invaluable historical details and masterful insights that show legislators and party activists selling out decentralization whenever it furthers their political ends. Read together, the two books provide a balanced understanding of how centralized policy making has replaced state autonomy with state dependency over the last 100 years. Of the two books, Taylor's is the more intriguing read.

PERSPECTIVE. If the Taylor book is to be sufficiently appreciated, it helps to step back and consider federalism's evolution and devolution. Generally, American decentralization is viewed by academics as a federalism and states' rights story, rooted in the political differences represented by the fifty-five delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. As revisionist historians allege, decentralization was not a political systems theory as much as political expediency for thirteen confederated states needing trade efficiencies, economic stability and an effective shared defense. Thus, the goal of the Tenth Amendment to maximize the prerogative powers of the states (except where those powers were delegated to the national government) was circumstantially necessitated more than strategically sought. An olive branch had to be offered to bring the anti-federalist leaning states onboard the U.S. Constitution.

Viewed from the neo-liberal revisionist perspective (not mine), the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1985 decision, "Garcia v. San Antonia Metropolitan Transit Authority" can be understood as reforming an institutional pillar of American republicanism that the Founders wrongly designed. "Garcia" sent the Tenth Amendment to bed with two aspirins and a fever reducer. The protection of states' rights was now to be invested in the trusteeship of the electorate's congressional representatives. If the people's political agents did not feel it important to carefully circumscribe the powers of the federal government, then the people had no one to blame but themselves. The high court's 5-4 ruling slathered oil on a slippery slope that reached well beyond the Commerce Clause. Happily, the Court's dissenters were not easily silenced. In decrying carte blanche federal government powers, Justice Powell warned, "The State's role in our system of government is a matter of Constitutional law, not legislative grace." But by that point in time, legislative grace was as damaged as the infrastructure of the Constitution.

RELATED WORKS. During the 1980s and early 1990s, many articles in scholarly journals (especially "Publius: The Journal of Federalism") highlighted what looked like a renewal of federalism. But with the 1996 collapse of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), it became apparent that decentralization's new day in the sun was to be short-lived. A few held onto hope, Michael S. Greve and others arguing that federalism could still be enlivened (Greve 1999, "Real Federalism: Why It Matters, How it Could Happen"). Paradoxically, in place of an enlivening of Ronald Reagan's "New Federalism" came a thunderous collapse of emergent decentralization--a political reversal that lawyer-author Robert F. Nagel called, "The Implosion of American Federalism" in his book by the same title (2001, Oxford University Press). Even the Gipper's endorsement of federalism was not sufficient to keep the GOP from taking centralism's wreckage strewn path.

SUMMARY. Jeff Taylor's book will not be the last word on the subject of decentralization. It may, however, be the first word in a recast conversation; namely, a discussion that uses the lens of culture and politics on a human level to remember why well-sculpted federalism (strategic decentralization) is too important a political institution to let slip away. This discussion is imperative in an era where crony capitalism is exploiting the centralist environment to further aims of multinational corporations. Likewise, neo-cons are expanding invasive and coercive government as they seek subsidies for the military-industrial complex, justified erroneously by visions of homeland security and a war on terror. If America ever needed "Politics on a Human Scale," the country needs it now.

Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism ...