From The Moral Foundations of Civil Society (1948) (New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Press, 1996) p. 154
Characteristics of Decentralization
They are thoughts [about social and economic reform] which are characterised by moving in only one direction; away from centralisation in every connection from all agglomerations, from the city pen and the factory coop, from accumulations of property and power which corrupt the one and proletarianise the other, from the soullessness and lack of dignity of labour through mechanised production and towards decentralisation in the widest and most comprehensive sense of the word;
- to the restoration of property;
- to a shifting of the social centre of gravity from above downwards;
- to the organic building-up of society from natural and neighbourly communities in a closed gradation starting with the family through parish and county to the nation;
- to a corrective for exaggerations in organisation, in specialisation, and division of labour (with at least a minimum of self-maintenance from one’s own soil);
- to the bringing back of all dimensions and proportions from the colossal to the humanly reasonable;
- to the development of fresh non-proletarian types of industry, that is to say to forms of industry adapted to peasants and craftsmen;
- to the natural furtherance of smaller units of factories and undertakings as well as to sociologically healthy forms of life and occupation, approaching as closely as possible that ideal border-line of peasant and craftsman;
- to breaking-up of monopolies of every kind and to the struggle against concentrations of businesses and undertakings where and whenever possible;
- to the breaking-up of the big cities and industrial districts and to a properly directed country-planning having as its aim a decentralization of residence and production;
- to the re-awakening of professional sentiment and to the restoration of the dignity of all honest labour;
- to the creation of conditions which render possible healthy family life and a non-artificial manner of bringing up children,
- to the resurrection of a cultural hierarchy which will put an end to the tumults of ambition and give each rung of the ladder its appropriate place.
From A Humane Economy
Centrism and Decentrism
Chapter V
“It should be clear by now that we are in the presence of two contrary principles which determine and mark all aspects of social life—politics, administration, economy, culture, housing, technology, and organization. If we take both concepts in a broad sense and explore their implications to the end, they will be revealed as two principles which express what is perhaps the most general contrast in social philosophy. Whether our ideal is centralization or decentralization, whether we regard as the primary element in society the individual and small groups or the large community, that is, the state, the nation, and the collective units up to the Utopian world state—these are the questions which ultimately constitute the watershed between all the currents of thought and points of view which we have so far confronted with each other.
This is where federalism and local government clash with political centralization. It is here that the friends of the peasantry, the crafts, and middle classes, and the small firm and of widely distributed private property and the lovers of nature and of the human scale in all things part company with the advocates of large-scale industry, technical and organizational rationality, huge associations, and giant cities. This is the moat across which the eternal dialogue goes on: on one side are those who think that the economy is best planned by the market, competition, and free prices and who regard the decentralization of economic decisions among millions of separate producers and consumers as the indispensable condition of freedom, justice, and well-being; on the other side are those who prefer planning from above, with the state’s compulsory powers. And so it goes on.
The centrist is none other than the social rationalist, whom we met before. Seen from his central point, the individual is small and eventually dwindles to a statistical figure, a building brick, a mathematical magnitude encased in equations, something that can be “refashioned,” in short, something that may well be lost sight of. We know with what optimism our social rationalist views the success of his constructions and refashioning. By contrast, the decentrist, who thinks in terms of human beings and also knows and respects history, is skeptical or pessimistic and in any case bases his arguments realistically and unsentimentally upon human nature. The centrist is doctrinaire, the decentrist undoctrinaire and unideological. The latter prefers to hold on to established principles; he is swayed more by a hierarchy of norms and values, by reason and sober reflection, than by passions and feelings; he is firmly rooted in ultimate and absolute convictions for which he requires no proof because he would regard it as absurd not to believe in them.
We see also that the centrist is what we have called a moralist, a moralist of the cheap rhetorical kind, who misuses big words, such as freedom, justice, rights of man, or others, to the point of empty phraseology, who poses as a paragon of virtues and stoops to use his moralism as a political weapon and to represent his more reserved adversary as morally inferior. Since, again, he looks at things from on high, well above the reality of individual people, his moralism is of an abstract, intellectual kind. It enables him to feel morally superior to others for the simple reason that he stakes his moral claims so high and makes demands on human nature without considering either the concrete conditions or the possible consequences of the fulfillment of those demands. He does not seem capable of imagining that others may not be lesser men because they make things less easy for themselves and do take account of the complications and difficulties of a practical and concrete code of ethics within which it is not unusual to will the good and work the bad.
The “left” moralist all too often reaches the point where his big words of love and freedom and justice serve as a cover for the exact opposite. The moralist, with his lofty admonitions, becomes an intolerant hater and envier, the theoretical pacifist an imperialist when it comes to the practical test, and the advocate of abstract social justice an ambitious place-hunter. These moralists are a world apart from the decentrists’ attitude, of which the hero’s father in Adalbert Stifter’s Nachsommer says that man does not primarily exist for the sake of human society but for his own sake, “and if each one of us exists in the best possible manner for his own sake, he does so for society as well.” I used to know an old servant who had discovered this wisdom for herself; she always wondered why so many people kept racking their brains about how to do good to others, while, so she thought, it would surely be better if everyone simply and decently did his duty in his own station. The centrist’s moral ideal frequently enough amounts to a desire to make the world into a place where, to quote Goethe again, everyone is nursing his neighbor—which presupposes a centralized compulsory organization.
The further we proceed with our analysis of the two modes of thought, the more we are led to assign each attitude to one or the other camp. The contrast between centrism and decentrism is, in fact, unusually comprehensive. In the economic sphere, the contrast is most clearly epitomized by monopoly and competition, and the collectivist economy corresponds to the centrist’s ideal, just as the market economy corresponds to the decentrist’s. Every economic intervention is a concession to centrism—made lightheartedly and in pursuit of his own ideal by the centrist and unwillingly by the decentrist. The latter demands strict justification for all concessions, and the burden of proof is on their advocates because it is his principle that there is always a presumption in favor of shifting the center of gravity of society and economy downwards, so that every act of centralization and every upward shift of the center of gravity requires convincing proof before the decentrist will condone such deviation from his ideal.
The position of equality and inequality cannot be in doubt. Equality and uniformity obviously belong to centrism; inequality, diversity, multiformity, and social articulation to decentrism. This requires no further explanation, but there is a special problem here upon which we touched earlier, namely, the particular form of “equality of opportunity.” This problem reminds us that life is not an equation which is soluble without a remainder; unless we are very careful, decentrism might involve itself in self-annihilating contradictions on this point. The ideal of decentrism, in common accord with one of the unchallenged aims of liberalism, certainly demands that individuals should try their strength against each other in free competition, and this implies that they start the race from the same starting line and on the same conditions. Is it, then, to be a continuous race of all for everything? Do we always have to be on the lookout for better opportunities, wherever they may appear? Do we always have to regret the opportunities we missed and always chase after those we think are better? This cannot be the true meaning of the ideal. If it were so, it would obviously be a dangerous ideal and one most uncongenial to the decentrist, and to pursue it would cause general unhappiness. Our star witness, Tocqueville, observed long ago that the Americans, in whose country equality of opportunity always held pride of place, are so dedicated to the restless hunt after better opportunities that they end up as nervous and ever dissatisfied nomads.
An uncommonly impressive and at the same time repulsive symbol of such a race of all for everything is to be found in the spectacle that memorable day, more than half a century ago, when a part of the territory of the present state of Oklahoma (the land had been taken from the Indians) was thrown open to settlers. They were waiting at the border, and at the shot of a pistol they all rushed forward from this completely equal starting line to compete for the best plots of land. Surely it must be obvious to everyone that nothing could be more unwise or dangerous than to turn society into such a continual race. Even if the production of goods could so he maximized, it would not be worth the price. Men would be incessantly on the move; culture, happiness, and nerves would be destroyed by an unending to and fro and up and down from place to place, from profession to profession, from one social class to another, from “shirt sleeves” to a fortune of millions and back to “shirt sleeves.” No, the deeper—we might say here the conservative—meaning of decentrism is that it behooves us to bethink ourselves of the indispensable conditions for a sound and happy society. These are a certain stratification of society, respect for natural developments, a modicum of variety and of horizontal and vertical social articulation, family traditions, personal inclinations, and inherited wealth. From this point of view, it is, for example, by no means foolish if a country’s townships or districts try to preserve their character to some extent by not immediately granting every newcomer the same rights as are enjoyed by the original inhabitants.
It is not good if all the sons of peasants and bakers should become, or wish to become, physicians, clergymen, or clerks. It is true, now as always, that it is highly desirable that men should have the happy feeling of being in the place where they belong— indeed, it is truer than ever in our age, when this feeling has become so rare because of the ideal of the race of all against all. Frederic Le Play, the nineteenth-century engineer and sociologist, was not so stupid when he discovered an important mainstay of society in the familles-souches, the families in which profession and economic and social position are handed down from father to son. Finally, it deserves to be stressed that if equality of opportunity is to be achieved by socializing education, envy and resentment will only be acerbated. If everybody has the same chances of advancement, those left behind will lose the face-saving and acceptable excuse of social injustice and lowly birth. The weakness of mind or character of the overwhelming majority of average or below-average people will be harshly revealed as the reason for failure, and it would be a poor observer of the human soul who thought that this revelation would not prove poisonous. No more murderous attack on the sum total of human happiness can be imagined than this kind of equality of opportunity, for, given the aristocratic distribution of the higher gifts of mind and character among a few only, such equality will benefit a small minority and make the majority all the unhappier.
In order not to stray from the right path, we must always remember that the ideal of decentrism requires us to stand for variety and independence in every sphere. However, it would be equally wrong if we were to confuse decentrism with particularism or parochialism and with parish-pump politics—that is to say, with a narrow-mindedness which can’t see the forest for the trees. This is not what is meant. The deccntrist must in all circumstances be a convinced universalist; he must keep his eye on a larger community which is all the more genuine for being structured and articulated. His center is God, and this is why he refuses to accept human centers instead, that is, precisely that which consistent centrism, in the form of collectivism, intends to present him with. This is how he understands the inscription placed on Ignatius de Loyola’s grave: “Not to be excluded from the greatest, yet to remain included in the smallest, that is divine.” This, no doubt, is also what Goethe had in mind when he said:
I am a citizen of the world,
I am a citizen of Weimar.
The right spirit is one which enables us to combine an overall view with a sense of the particular. On the one hand we should cultivate a universal approach to all intellectual, political, and economic matters and reject narrow views and actions and, above all, intellectual, political, and economic regionalism and nationalism; on the other hand, we should prize variety and independence at all levels and in all spheres, on the basis of the common patrimony of mankind, which is beyond all levels and spheres.
Apart from many other insights which the centrist lacks, the decentrist also knows that it is always easier to centralize than to decentralize and to widen the powers of the state than to curtail them. There is yet another thing which the decentrist knows better, and this is that the centrist’s path is bound to lead to regions where the air of freedom and humanity becomes thinner and thinner, until we end up on the icy peaks of totalitarianism, from which nations can hardly hope to escape without a fall. The trouble is that once one takes this road, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn back. Centrism is in danger of encountering no check any more, least of all in itself. The obsession of uninhibited centrism can, like so many other things, be illustrated by a story from the world’s store of legends. It characterizes with exaggerated symbolism both the direction of the march and the secret wishes of its leaders. I have in mind the story of Caligula, who is reported to have expressed the wish that the people of Rome might have but a single head so that it could be decapitated with one stroke. Caligula’s wish has always remained the symbol of a kind of centrism which is tyrannical because it knows no limits and also a symbol of the inevitable end to which centralization must lead.
The temptation of centrism has been great at all times, as regards both theory and political action. It is the temptation of mechanical perfection and of uniformity at the expense of freedom. Perhaps Montesquieu was right when he said (Esprit des Lois, XXIX, 18) that it is the small minds, above all, which succumb to this temptation. Once the mania of uniformity and centralization spreads and once the centrists begin to lay down the law of the land, then we are in the presence of one of the most serious danger signals warning us of the impending loss of freedom, humanity, and the health of society.
A century ago, John Stuart Mill wrote: “If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed.”
…
“Our world suffers from the fatal disease of concentration, and those—the politicians, leading personalities of the economy, chief editors, and others—in whose hands the threads converge have a task which simply exceeds human nature. The constant strain is propagated through all other levels, down to the harassed foreman and his like. It is the curse of our age. It is a curse twice over because these men, who can do their duty only at the peril of angina pectoris, lack the time for calm reflection or the quiet reading of a hook. This creates the utmost danger for cultural leadership. Who can imagine nowadays an age like that of the Younger Pitt, when, as he relates, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain needed no private secretary because the extent of business did not justify one? Or who can imagine the way of life of Alexander von Humboldt, who could deal by himself with his annual correspondence of about three thousand letters and still remained one of the foremost thinkers of his generation and reached the age of nearly ninety years?
We shall not inquire about the simple happiness which is at stake. All that is self-evident. We only have to say this: our centrist civilization, which has become more and more remote from man and the human scale, has reached the point where its own continued existence is at stake.”