مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 علوم سیاسی

Our superb instrument of domestic governance has been stretched beyond its limits by two independent sets of forces. The first led to the creation of a national continental economy in which the basic economic units operate in an integrated national basis.Whether one is an automobile manufacturer, insurance company, department store, or telecommunications vendor, one plans and operates nationally. On the other hand, a large share of basic governance remains in the hands of the 50 states, several thousand counties, and countless numbers of specialized jurisdictions. The result is that everyone has a brake and no one has a gas pedal. The division of political power is totally mismatched with the structure of the economy. The reader is challenged to identify a single economic enterprise of significance where only one jurisdiction has authority. Enormous negative power lies in the hands of almost anyone or any group choosing to work its will at the state or local level, while the integration of forces to move in any direction is blunted and incoherent. One sees this in the extreme in 2400 people sentenced to death and on death row. In 15 years, only 121 have been executed. However one feels about the death penalty, it should be seen as ironic and a failure of government that the death rate is now lower for those condemned to death than it is for free citizens in the general society.

The rise of the national society has led to the withering away of one of the key features of the traditional success of American democracythat is, the willingness to trade off and exchange, to give a little to gain a lot. Today national forces can organize and exert immense concentrated power at a local level. One sees this in either side of the right-to-life vs pro-choice battle, but one also sees it in more ordinary issues in which a national corporation, upset by the possibility of local controls, threatens to close down its facility because it can move somewhere else. One sees this in the attempts to legislate and improve the situation in one state, leading to the threat or the actual movement of those who would be controlled into another environment. The rise of single-issue politics is pernicious to democracy. Irrespective of what else one stands for, if you are not with the single-issue advocates, they will knock you off. This, in turn, has had its most dramatic effect in Congress, in which most members are in dread of the single-issue constituency.