Home Rule vs. Centralization
It’s been my contention for some time that very few people understand the value of distributed decision making. Economists seem to understand the beauty of the idea, but the whole concept tends to get left out of most big picture discussions. The idea is basically that dozens or hundreds or thousands making independent decisions tend to produce better results than a central figure at the top. (But not always!) Probably the best source to explain all of this was a statistician named W. Edwards Deming, formerly of the U.S. Census bureau, who years ago had the presence of mind to point out that people trapped in an inflexible system can’t improve it. Econo-watchers from Friedman to Reich have picked up on how a lack of hierarchy has turbocharged international trade, but have trouble translating the idea back to home.
I’m probably most bothered by this oversight in “public policy,” which implies in its very name a centralized, planner-oriented approach of which the Bolsheviks would be proud. This is only more galling when the same people involved in the planning drone on and on about the wonder of “democracy” (are they ancient Greeks?) Exactly how are the two connected? Is ballot representation really representation at all when blown up to a giant scale and centralized on one place? Those that get all exercised about U.S. Presidential elections draw particular skepticism. To them I ask: What kind of mandate can a plebiscite of 300 million with two choices possibly give? In a small list of macro-candidates, the inevitable result of big-tent organization, which of the issues you agree with are represented? Is it all or nothing, what to do about mixed / split issue races? What’s a pro-choice, pro-gun or an anti-tax, pro-civil liberties voter to do?
The original idea behind a republic was delegating the best men to make what decisions needed to be made collectively (and only those.) This is relies critically on knowing the members of the community to choose from. The concept of picking the best members of the community to make delegated decisions doesn’t work at a scale where there is no possible way to know anything about anyone running beyond third-hand and heavily mediated information.
The more centralized decision making (and resource distribution – wait – did I just say “resource distribution?” How planner.) becomes, the more slowly decisions are made, and the more institutional inertia there is to getting anything done. This isn’t due necessarily to malice or incompetence, it’s simply far more difficult to balance all of the competing global interests, not just local ones Isn’t most of the problem with New Orleans reconstruction waiting for a central authority to act? (I will, once again, guarantee that the same thing would not happen in Chicago. Why? Home Rule. Not necessarily entirely legal, but home rule just the same.)
Whether it be a government or a corporation or some sort of episcopal entity, effective scaling screams for distribution of thinking. It’s simply a serial processing versus parallel processing question. Regardless how attractive the cult of the exceptional may be, competent people at the lowest possible levels will generally be more effective than exceptional people removed from the situation or overloaded or disconnected or all three. In a pure theory sense these are the same problems with categories and learning from A.I. (anticipated by Heidegger?) versus the small-scale trial-and-error approach of Artificial Life .
Examples of the comparison abound: Here we have Jane Jacobs squaring off against Robert Moses. Here we have Adam Smith against Frederich Engels. And, of course, Friedman versus Galbraith.
There’s only so much thinking power to go around, perhaps we should use more of it.
I’m probably most bothered by this oversight in “public policy,” which implies in its very name a centralized, planner-oriented approach of which the Bolsheviks would be proud. This is only more galling when the same people involved in the planning drone on and on about the wonder of “democracy” (are they ancient Greeks?) Exactly how are the two connected? Is ballot representation really representation at all when blown up to a giant scale and centralized on one place? Those that get all exercised about U.S. Presidential elections draw particular skepticism. To them I ask: What kind of mandate can a plebiscite of 300 million with two choices possibly give? In a small list of macro-candidates, the inevitable result of big-tent organization, which of the issues you agree with are represented? Is it all or nothing, what to do about mixed / split issue races? What’s a pro-choice, pro-gun or an anti-tax, pro-civil liberties voter to do?
The original idea behind a republic was delegating the best men to make what decisions needed to be made collectively (and only those.) This is relies critically on knowing the members of the community to choose from. The concept of picking the best members of the community to make delegated decisions doesn’t work at a scale where there is no possible way to know anything about anyone running beyond third-hand and heavily mediated information.
The more centralized decision making (and resource distribution – wait – did I just say “resource distribution?” How planner.) becomes, the more slowly decisions are made, and the more institutional inertia there is to getting anything done. This isn’t due necessarily to malice or incompetence, it’s simply far more difficult to balance all of the competing global interests, not just local ones Isn’t most of the problem with New Orleans reconstruction waiting for a central authority to act? (I will, once again, guarantee that the same thing would not happen in Chicago. Why? Home Rule. Not necessarily entirely legal, but home rule just the same.)
Whether it be a government or a corporation or some sort of episcopal entity, effective scaling screams for distribution of thinking. It’s simply a serial processing versus parallel processing question. Regardless how attractive the cult of the exceptional may be, competent people at the lowest possible levels will generally be more effective than exceptional people removed from the situation or overloaded or disconnected or all three. In a pure theory sense these are the same problems with categories and learning from A.I. (anticipated by Heidegger?) versus the small-scale trial-and-error approach of Artificial Life .
Examples of the comparison abound: Here we have Jane Jacobs squaring off against Robert Moses. Here we have Adam Smith against Frederich Engels. And, of course, Friedman versus Galbraith.
There’s only so much thinking power to go around, perhaps we should use more of it.
posted by KP | 23.9.07
2 Comments:
The more centralized decision making (and resource distribution – wait – did I just say “resource distribution?” How planner.) becomes, the more slowly decisions are made, and the more institutional inertia there is to getting anything done.
Your argument is floating on air. Is this just an assertion, or do you have concrete examples? Give us a real argument why Chicago could never be New Orleans where "a lack of centralized planning" does any work in the argument.
The short answer is that it’s easier to make decisions when there are fewer interests to balance. As I understand the coverage of the gulf, the federal-to-state-to-population handoff has been the sticking point in Louisiana, while much of Mississippi was rebuilt swiftly with private funds. (i.e. the additional layers of approval required to justify distribution to a distant body reduced the effectiveness of the distribution.) As far as Chicago, Richard Daley is famous for swift decisive action. I feel confident that the guy that would destroy meigs field in defiance of federal law would use the same bulldozers to clear the cars from the streets. The basic thrust is that the smallest unit usually has the most current information, whether it be Jane Jacobs’ neighbor choosing to convert his dry-goods store to a deli (responding to local demand,) Edwards Deming’s assembly worker adapting the windshield sealant installation technique (to solve an unforeseen leak,) or the Mars rover using its software to work around rocks without waiting for instructions from JPL. It kind of all goes back to the learning from the ants thing.
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