Two recent meetings showed the substantial differences possible within the American system of government. One is certainly superior to the other, and that superiority is not dependent upon the size of the governed body. Neither is the dominant form nationally; Alexander Hamilton’s version of Federalism has largely won the day, drifting us recently on a rapid course towards a technocratic (global?) totalitarianism. That is a subject for another time. Here we compare and contrast two possibly utopian ideals.
The first, actually functional method of government might be modelled on Thomas Jefferson’s idea of “wards”. These were geographic units smaller than our current counties wherein self-government of a largely agrarian rural populations could take place independent of outside authorities. In Jefferson’s vision, if not his lifestyle or Presidential methods, self-sufficiency, self-government, and individual responsibility were the keystones of political life. For him “all politics are local”, and nothing that could be accomplished by a more local level of elected representative government need involve federal government. Thus he founded the Democratic Republican Party in opposition to Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which Jefferson found corrupting the principles of the American Revolution with dangerous financial and political elitism. A hyperlocal version of his ideals is my homeowners’ association, a micro republic contained, matryoshka-like, within many other enlarging levels of similar elected bodies.
This homeowner’s association has ruled benignly over forty-four households since the subdivision of our county was created almost forty years ago. We have a micro-constitution consisting of Rules and Regulations set up from a state-approved template, and modified consistent with changes by upper echelons of representative government. Perhaps a reversal of Jeffersonian power flow. Even so, we elect members voluntarily to serve on an Executive Board, empowered by our continuing consent to represent our ongoing special local interests in maintaining and enhancing our neighborhood. That Board meets regularly, open to all homeowners to attend and comment, to exert control over the association’s finances and the application of those finances to common needs. These include landscaping, street maintenance and repair, and assuring that all homeowners abide by the common rules and regulations regarding use of and appearance of their properties. Board members also serve on smaller subcommittees for various activities, occasionally with other non-Board homeowners participating. The affairs of the association and its Board are complex, and also involve insuring the association and the board, utilizing an administrative contractor and other contractors for various maintenance or repair activities, and interacting with higher governmental levels when required. All activities are communicated to the homeowners via mail, the internet, and posted communications. All opinions on any subject affecting the neighborhood by any of the homeowners are open to hearing and consideration at any time. The collective wisdom of our crowd, despite its changing membership due to sales of homes, has guided our miniature ‘republic’ through earthquakes, droughts, monsoons, and multiple significant economic dislocations without difficulty or dissent. Would that we could export this sense of shared responsibility and authority to higher levels of government.
That next level of government would be our city. Another city, Morro Bay, has chosen to experience the worst form of democracy. Morro Bay is an excellent example of Thomas Jefferson’s democratic republic “ward”. He envisioned small geographic areas, less than counties, whose populace wielded local authority through elected non-professional officials, transmitting their wishes upwards to less empowered state and eventually federal officials, also elected for transient periods (federalism). Political power’s main source was to be the base of that pyramid. Morro Bay’s City Council recently dealt with a land use question within its clean energy policies. The city intends to rid itself of a very unsightly and carbonaceous power plant clearly visible near its famed seaside rock. An early step in this process is placing a “green energy” battery farm on vacant land nearby that is deemed possibly contaminated by toxins. Although largely progressive, the city population has exploded in indignation at the placement of such a facility on that land despite its utility. As a result, the City Council has decided to cede authority over this decision to the voting public at large in a local referendum regarding land use. They have chosen to dodge their elective duties in order to remain elected. Absolute democracy will assume all authority and power over land use matters. How can it be bad to ignore the holistic and long-term needs of the community, to ignore carefully done land use studies done by professionals, to ignore the possible superseding powers and authorities of county or state governments? The more persistently loud and impassioned crowd will make the decisions. Once that verbally violent mob of fanatics is empowered to replace the powers and authorities of the elected officials, further areas of “democratic” aggrandizement will likely occur. The Morro Bay City Council may be ceding itself into obsolescence in their desire to avoid the mob’s displeasure and maintain their seats, if not their duties. Their powers do come from the electorate, but those powers do carry responsibilities. Deciding to avoid those responsibilities is neither republican or democratic in politically philosophical terms.
Granted, Jefferson was a slave-holding misogynist who engaged in miscegenation (a bit of chronological snobbery), but he wasn’t wrong about the moral and social foundations of representational democracy, which works when the populace participates. That participation is through being informed, and giving informed feedback, to elected representatives, and removing them if the electorate feels they are not well served. True democracy, so loudly and widely touted, has never existed (examine Roman and Greek ideas more closely). It is far too susceptible to mob mass formations or populism demagoguery. Hopefully saner thoughts will save Morro Bay’s residents from the kind of creeping democracy that tends to end in the dictatorship of the proletariat.