“The concept of rationality that has dominated Western culture and social life since the seventeenth century involved a belief in big, centrally controlled systems. Since Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Newton, the ideal of science and philosophy has been systematization of all knowledge and its exact derivation from a minimum number of central principles. The ideal of political organization, exemplified in absolute monarchies, philosophically expressed in Hobbes and Hegel, and revived in new forms after dramatic twentieth century upheavals – the great depression in the West, incomplete socialist revolutions in the East – has been an excessively centralized state which, in the name of security, reason and justice, has taken care of an established social order.
Analogously, there is a steady trend toward increasing centralization in Western economies – from small workshops to ever bigger enterprises, then to monopolies, on to increasing state control, and eventually to huge multinational corporations and multi-state economic communities.
From the point of view of the ultimate purpose of this specifically Western concept of rationality – unlimited increase of human efficiency, increase of power and of wealth – centralism has proved quite successful. Another important ingredient of Western culture – the idea of human freedom – had to retreat constantly. At each increase in centralization, resistance was offered in the name of freedom, invariably in vain. Manufacture had no chance against the assembly line and automation; laissez-faire had to give way to state capitalism, federation to quickly growing bureaucratic leviathans, small provincial towns to huge overcrowded super-cities, self-produced local culture to uniform big mass-media culture.
To be sure, not all that was small, loose and autonomous deserved to survive. There was never so much exploitation as in the days of laissez-faire and fully free-competition. Behind the facade of autonomy and self-determination of federal units, most drastic forms of racism, and political and religious intolerance and oppression, can take place. Small masters need not be more merciful than the big ones.
And yet the whole traditional bourgeois concept of rationality, with its identification of progress with unlimited growth and increasing efficiency within big centralized systems, is now in profound crisis.
A point has been reached when further exponential growth on a planet with limited natural resources threatens to irreversibly destroy the natural environment. The degree of alienation of work in huge centralized technological systems has become unbearable and begins to constitute a barrier to any further increase in productivity at work. Concentration of corporate and state power meets stronger resistance than ever, in the form of mass demands for participation and reduction of excessive bureaucratic machinery.
The very ground of rationality on which modern centralism rests has now become problematic. If reason is used only to increase efficiency and power, then it is purely instrumental rationality -these cannot be the ultimate purpose of human life. Efficiency is obviously a means which can be used for both oppression and emancipation. And power can be creative, but can also dominate other human beings.
BASIC LIMITATIONS OF CENTRALISM
Centralism is one of the most characteristic features of this rationality of efficiency and domination. However, a critique of centralism can be both an expression of a naive, romantic rejection of growth, a nostalgia for traditional pre-capitalist forms of life, and it can be a thoughtful, radically new project for overcoming the basic limitations of centralistic patterns of social life. The former overlooks that there were strong reasons for its emergence (it helped introduce order in an increasingly more complex society). A more adequate critique recognizes this history, but finds both philosophical and practical deficiencies now.
We can focus on the following essential limitations:
- Each centralistic system has a hierarchical structure: power is concentrated in the centre and its ownership declines as one moves towards the periphery. Whatever its form of legitimation, this hierarchical structure involves a tremendous amount of domination -blatantly so when the central authority is ascribed divine origin. The purpose of modern political ideologies is to conceal this structure. The social contract theory postulates a fictitious delegation of power from individual citizens to a central political authority. Citizens are denied the right to take their power back – which would be a permanent possibility if they were not dominated, and if they had really delegated power voluntarily. Another political ideology of our time tends to justify the central authority by ascribing to its bearer the status of a revolutionary history-making vanguard of the masses. But unless the vanguard has really free consent from the masses it is hardly anything but a self-appointed master. The so-called ‘democratic centralism’ has nothing democratic in it: a well-organized elite firmly holding all levers of power will always secure a majority. The only difference is that, while some systems guarantee minorities’ rights to continue defending their views, democratic centralism compels them to conform fully.
- What follows from this hierarchy of power is a high degree of heteronomy – inevitable in every large, complex society, no matter how democratic. Certain common issues will have to be solved for the society as a whole. If this is done democratically, communities will elect their representatives, who will eventually reach a consensus – or more often, a compromise, containing undesired elements. Heteronomy increases enormously with centralization for at least three reasons. First, there are too many issues decided at, say, the national level, although they could be regulated by local communities themselves. Second, the representatives are no longer fully responsible to their electorate; they are also dependent on and responsible to the central state apparatus, central party, and centres of corporate power. Third, once developed, a strong central authority has all kinds of ways to interfere with an apparently democratic decision-making process.
- The more centralistic a system, the more mediation is needed between the centre and those people with power. A special social group is needed to play this mediating role: bureaucracy. There are some differences between a liberal bureaucracy which treats all citizens as interchangeable, and therefore strictly enforces the rules (Weberian bureaucracy), and a totalitarian bureaucracy which has a stratified concept of citizenship, so that some individuals become above the law – and some, below it. In both cases, the sacred principle of any bureaucracy is order; its very existence kills all initiative and spontaneity (except that coming from the centre). Keeping the existing established order by all means and against any ‘pathological’ deviation, disturbance and unrest, constitutes the particular interest of bureaucracy and of the centre it serves. This particular interest is invariably construed as the general social interest; no centralist system can survive without some kind of mystifying ideology. While one function of ideology is to legitimate dominating power, another is to conceal existing forms of exploitation. Thus bureaucracy is given the image of a precious social force, without which society would fall apart, and which deserves excessive salaries and privileges for its expertise. The truth is, of course, that basic decision making in general, and creative, innovative coordination in particular, require far more wisdom and understanding than bureaucratic expertise, and that special skills and techniques need not go together with any dominating power.
- While claiming rationality and efficiency, all centralistic systems suffer from a specific form of inefficiency and waste. Decisions are taken at levels remote from the people they affect, and too often with much delay. Admittedly, remoteness can put the whole into better perspective, and thus aid rationality – all else being equal. But neither is all else equal, nor is what could be called atomism the only alternative to an abstract holism that characterizes bureaucratic thinking. Being on the spot allows richer, more reliable, first-hand information, and many public issues are of such local importance, that they need not be regulated from a distance. At which level of social organization – local, regional or more global – a public issue should be regulated is a problem that cannot be solved by a general formula: simply centralistic or simply decentralistic. In each case, many factors have to be weighted; the gains from uniformity and interrelatedness may be overwhelmed by having to use scanty, abstract, information, lacking in the psychological nuances of the specific situation. Diversity in problems may benefit from diversity in solutions. Most importantly, the more freedom people have to influence events around them, the more responsibility they feel; waiting for orders from the centre tends to make people passive, apathetic, and alienated, and they individually and collectively stop caring about the public good. Public initiative and innovation die. In that sense, all centralistic systems tend to become barriers to qualitative development, no matter how much they foster quantitative growth.
Herein lies the root of the present day crisis of centralism. It was instrumental in expansion, domination and conquest. But the point has been reached when even the most advanced countries can no longer solve their problems by mindless expansion and exploitation of natural and human resources. Changing nature beyond certain boundaries turns out to be changing the only natural conditions under which human survival is at all possible. Domination breeds hatred and rebellion sooner or later; instead of continuing to expand, centuries-old dominating powers have now been compelled to retreat and lose ground. Once it is no longer possible to plunder the riches of the whole world, and to build an illusory prosperity on the misery of the whole human kind, an incurable internal sickness develops, and impressive efficiency begins to turn into a horrifying wastefulness. But if, after all, saving, modesty, frugality, and reduction of excessive material needs is indispensable, then the whole system which claimed the very opposite values has become redundant – or worse.
PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF DECENTRALIZATION
Extreme forms of centralism (fascist or Stalinist totalitarianism) presuppose a complete subordination of the individual to some kind of abstract collective entity. In fascism, man is a mere element of the state, of the nation, or of the race; his unique personality has to give way fully to the unity of all those with whom he shares blood, territory and sacred aggressive goals. In Stalinism, man is predominantly a class being and tends to subordinate individual aspirations to objective class interests, which sometimes may be known scientifically and, as in fascism, is best expressed by a superwise leader. In both views, any tendency toward decentralization would jeopardize the unity of the nation, of the state, or of the movement, and of the Party. This is a striking similarity between ideologies which otherwise have very different historical functions and start from different premises. What makes them excessively centralistic is that, whatever their goals, they tend to achieve them in an extremely authoritarian and violent way.
It might seem then, that the only alternative is individualism, the view that man is a unique person justified in pursuing his own, private, freely chosen aims and interests. However, as liberalist political philosophy anticipates and ample historical experience convincingly shows, extreme individualism, if coherent, cannot be lived (because it generates permanent insecurity) – and if incoherent, leads to increasingly unpleasant forms of centralism (to provide security and order). That liberalism is not immune from centralism has always been evident in France, and has recently become obvious in almost every liberalist state.
Far from being a real alternative to totalitarianism, egoistic individualism (with its glaring social inequalities and feeble sense of social integrity) often paves the way to it. What all those ideologies have in common is the denial that human beings have an inherent capacity to understand what social needs are and what would be the rational way to meet them. Man is both a unique person and a social being. As an individual, he has a distinctive creative potential and develops quite specific needs and aspirations. But the newly-born biological organism becomes a human being only in a society: learning a language, a logic, a morality, acquiring the cultural heritage of the whole of mankind. He belongs to a family, to a nation, to a class. He needs personal freedom; Hitler’s and Stalin’s ways deprive him of it only by the use of brute force, and only temporarily. But where all Stalinists are wrong is confusing personal freedom with unlimited egoism. The human need to be free goes together with another need: to be recognized and esteemed in the community to which one belongs. Self-realization has an inner limit: a concern about the wellbeing of others; in that sense, human freedom is responsible. Egoism, acquisitiveness and aggressivity are not inevitable, genetically determined trails, but patterns produced by education. Thus any political philosophy based on the assumption of egoistic human nature holds no ground.
The only philosophical ground for a genuine alternative to centralism is the conception of man as a being capable of solving at least some social issues in a rational and responsible way. It is not assumed here that all individuals have equal problem-solving capacities, or that all problems can be directly resolved in elementary living and working communities.
The point is simply that each human individual is able to participate in political decision making at least at the elementary level of social organization. This is exactly what each form of centralism denies. Both moderate liberalist and extreme totalitarian centralism share the view that ordinary citizens lack the competence for efficient decision making, and that whatever their rights and opportunities to influence the central political authority, the authority itself must stay in the hands of a professional political elite. And yet what every centralism presupposes is that its locus is the political sphere, and that the whole society is divided into first a small group of professional political subjects, and then a large mass of more or less passive, irresponsible political objects.
The basic philosophical arguments of those who oppose any centralism may be summarized thus. Since political dimensions of social decision making require reason, responsibility, personal integrity, wisdom and understanding of social needs – and these are general capacities of all human individuals, not special technical skills – there is no need for any concentration of power in the hands of professional politicians. Problems will be solved where they arise – at the lowest possible level of social organization, by all concerned citizens or their responsible non-professional representatives.
THE IDEA OF FEDERALISM
So far we have discussed the relation of individual citizens to society. Since society has a multilevel structure, we must consider the relation of basic communities and higher-level communities, through to the global society.
If we were seeking a simple but clear framework, we could invoke the integrity of the whole, and its disaggregation into component parts. Local and regional communities are subordinated to the global society; within each, there is a unity of laws, unity of policies and a unique sense of direction imposed by a centre of power. This is centralism. Since the price of unity of the global system is a considerable loss of freedom by the parts, disintegrative forces may become so strong that the whole falls apart. Now its former components enjoy the benefits of autonomy but suffer from the lack of coordination. The status of the minorities within the parts may deteriorate: they may lose legal protection of the former centralistic order.
A real alternative is federalism, in the most general sense of a union of any kind of communities (nation states, provinces, cultural or political organizations) which collaborate as equal partners while preserving much autonomy. A federation of this kind is possible when all component communities have an objective interest in cooperation, in sharing certain natural or cultural resources, in exchanging goods and experiences, in joining efforts against natural forces or some other common threat. Thus the basic assumption of the federation is that it is a free creation of the parts (rather than a primary whole) that determines the conditions of its parts. No matter how well coordinated, this type of union does not have any dominating centre, because none of its component units aspires to domination and/or because they all strongly resist any such tendency. The stability of such a federation depends on a balance of two opposed forces, one towards greater identity and uniformity, the other towards diversity and cultural traditions and values. Just as an individual needs a social environment in which to develop, a community willingly accepts a larger society as its natural surroundings – when it can freely develop within it, autonomously decide on its specific problems, equally participate in the solution of shared issues, and when it can collaborate with other parts without being abused or exploited. Indeed, there can be more coordination in a federation then in a centralist system.
While conceptual clarity is essential for building transparent relations within any large association, experience with existing federations indicates all kinds of difficulties requiring sometimes rather ingenious solutions.
One such difficulty is difference in size and population. If ordinary democratic rules are applied, a more populous member will have more representatives in the federal assembly, and thus more power. But giving more weight to some votes than the others (following John Stuart Mill) destroys the equality of individual citizens and may damage the bigger units. This problem can be only partly solved through more sophisticated institutional arrangements. For example:
- A federal assembly could consist of several chambers; in one, all federal units would be represented by equal numbers of representatives, regardless of size, population, etc. such a chamber would have a right to veto on all those issues that are vital to the interests of any particular federal unit. Another chamber would be composed of the representatives of all individual citizens – a federation is ultimately an association of people, not of abstract entities, and many issues will cut across the interests of federal units.
- Conflicts of interest among members cannot be resolved by a simple vote. The only method is by dialogue, negotiation and eventually reaching consensus. All kinds of objections are possible here, it may be too slow when quick solutions are needed; the compromise reached after all parties have made concessions need not be the most rational one; negotiations do not take place in public, and individuals who take part in them seem to acquire special powers. Thus this procedure appears none too democratic. (This crucial issue of democratic leadership will be discussed later). And what about efficiency: where is the guarantee that such agreements really would be implemented?
Surely this, in the short run, need not be the most efficient or instrumentally rational way of resolving conflicts. Those for whom efficiency and instrumental rationality are supreme values may opt for centralism. This method is optimal for those who commit themselves to autonomy and equal distribution of power. A price has to be paid for each choice. A federal society may deliberately decide to invest in developing full self-determination among all its constituent communities. In the long run, this is more rational and may be even more efficient; too impatient and careless a handling of initial tensions might later result in explosive and irreparable cleavages.
However, the survival of a stable, harmonious federation can not be secured only by more complex institutional arrangements and more democratic methods of resolving conflicts. There must be a political culture that combines autonomy with solidarity, genuine pluralism with a universal emancipatory rationality. Pluralism is indispensable to the understanding and respecting of the different needs of others.
A common political culture, part of which must be explicitly expressed in the federal constitution, should provide some basic premises for resolving conflict. Such premises are, first, agreement on ultimate priorities (other things being equal); second, agreement on priorities when other things are not equal, and when they are mutually incompatible. When a federal unit, for selfish reasons, raises a particular issue, it will be invited to justify it with reference to generally accepted principles. Dialogues cannot be won with short-sighted, self-centred policies. It is true that these policies can be stubbornly defended once one escapes the field of rational and moral discourse, and turns to formalistic legal rationalization. After all, it is conceivable that a part may use its veto powers to blackmail the rest of the society. But in such a case, either the blackmailing leadership would lose the support of its own constituency (and be recalled), or the federation would start to fall apart.
Another essential difficulty of federalism arises with gaps in the level of economic and cultural development of various members which make it harder to achieve full autonomy and equal distribution of power. Indeed, it is conceivable that (given some terms of trade) a loose federal structure may even increase the gap. Centralism may be more efficient in closing it – but at the expense of strengthening a lasting, alienated authoritarian power structure. Since federalism by its very nature excludes the use of authoritarian central force, it may resort only to those means which are compatible with autonomy and the self-determination of each member.
Giving aid to overcome backwardness need not be justified on moral grounds alone; it is also a rational action, a matter of mutual interest. Growing social inequalities among members of a federation intensify conflicts and make the federation increasingly vulnerable and unstable; investment in self-development is a much more reasonable and less costly policy than a myriad of mere welfare programmes (with all their waste, bureaucracy and condemnation to passivity). Members that begin to approach affluence become much better partners in exchange of goods and services. Certain issues can be resolved only in a global way; for example, efforts from some members to improve the quality of the natural environment may not make much sense if poorer ones cannot afford to join them. In a world of growing interdependence, federalism appears to be the optimal way of transcending backwardness.
DECENTRALIZATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL RATIONALITY
Much of the appeal of centralism has always derived from its claim that it best meets demands of efficiency and technological rationality. We have seen that many social activities do not require centralistic planning and control in order to be run efficiently (and, indeed, such planning may do harm). But how should federalism deal with activities which are a common concern, which require common natural and human resources, a high level of well-ordered coordination, and division of roles and unique direction – e.g. energy production, public transportation, protection of the natural environment, production of indispensable raw materials, or defence? This is where centralism could be at its best. Could a decentralized society run those activities efficiently enough?
Two answers are possible. Extreme decentralism as advocated by some traditional anarchists (Godwin, Hodgskin, Warren, Tucker) and some contemporary ecologists, holds that all big systems are intrinsically bad, and that all activities which require them (nuclear energy, jet transportation, big cities, etc.) ought to be abandoned. Giving up a part of our power over nature would be a reasonable price to pay for a reduction in authoritarian social power.
Moderate decentralism rejects only those big systems which are inevitably authoritarian – such as the state, the political party, the professional army, the church, the business corporation. Those big systems which can be regulated in a self-governing, federalist way deserve to be preserved, and further developed if they increase productivity, reduce labour alienation, and allow more satisfaction of human needs. Free movement, personally meeting other cultures, races and civilizations, is such a need, and cannot be satisfied without modern technology for travel and communication. Again energy needs cannot be met without large electricity networks, and fusion nuclear power may ultimately be the only energy source to maintain human civilization. Large systems for gathering and conveying information serve too often the established powers, but are not intrinsically authoritarian, and may very efficiently satisfy the universal human need for knowledge.
EXCESSIVE DECENTRALIZATION
In summary, excessive decentralization suffers from an absence of necessary coordination (leads to disorder, waste, inefficiency), low productivity (including more wastage – and low wages); offering few outlets for many rare human skills (in scientific research, the arts, and sports); and encourages narrow provincial mentalities ( a major retrogression) hardly any goal can justify a reduction of an already achieved high level of human creativity.
But the decisive question is: does excessive decentralization ipso facto eliminate domination, oppression, exploitation? And the answer is, no. One huge impersonal leviathan may be merely replaced by a number of small personal local masters. Far from being more beautiful, the small master may be more inconsiderate, arbitrary, frustrated and sadistic. Decentralization makes sense only when it helps to eliminate master-slave relations. But the crucial question is indeed how to emancipate from masterhood, how to use decentralization as a means to abolish alienated power both at the level of global society and within each community.
DECENTRALIZATION AND ABOLITION OF ALIENATED POWER
If the ultimate purpose of decentralization is maximization of human autonomy and creativity, then this purpose ought to be achieved both in the relation of a particular community toward the totality of communities and in the relation of each individual citizen toward his immediate community. Since Dean Jacques Rousseau, all emancipatory movements have been plagued with the confusion between volonte generale and volonte de tous (general will and the will of all individuals). The former does not involve actual consent and participation of individuals; they need not even be aware of what is claimed to be their will. This clearly presupposes a leader (or a leading elite) that interprets the people’s will, that knows it in some mysterious way even before it was ever manifested. In contrast volonte de tous is constituted of common aims in actual wills of individuals.
It goes without saying that human beings are not always aware, let alone fully aware, of their objective interests. Neither should one deny the great role that specially gifted individuals – the leaders – may have in enlightening other individuals, in bringing those interests to their attention, in helping them to articulate them. Once they recognize certain goals as their own, people in a given community may delegate part of their sovereign power to such leaders, to achieve some practical progress.
Delegation of power in this sense is a feature of all democratic societies. The crucial issue is whether those who delegate power retain control over it. When they do not, when an alleged ‘general will’ is imposed on individuals, although they do not recognize it as their own will, the whole situation can be described as political alienation.
The typical form of alienated power in politics is the institution of the state, with a monopoly of power in the hands of a professional apparatus and its characteristically repressive functions. To abolish alienated political power means, first, to transform the state into self-government. The practical meaning of this transformation may be spelled out thus:
(a) The members of a self-governing body, at any level of social organization, are directly elected by the people, or delegated by a lower-level organ or self-government. Elections are fully democratic: no candidate can have any privileges.
(b) The members of a self-governing body are elected for limited periods; rotation must be strictly observed, and perpetuation of the power of professional politicians must be strictly denied.
(c) The members of a self-governing body are directly responsible to their electorate (and not to any political organization). They are obliged to give regular accounts to the community they represent, and are subject to recall. Such dependence on the will of the community does not preclude their leadership role: they lead by articulating and stating explicitly those vaguely felt needs of the community, and by finding ways to reconcile the interests of the community with the interests of other communities and society as a whole. The institution of self-government excludes authoritarian leadership.
(d) Representatives must not enjoy any material privileges. They must be compensated for their work, as in any other creative public activity. Anything beyond that constitutes a form of concealed exploitation, produces undesirable social differences, lowers the motivation of the representatives (and the morale of the community), and eventually creates a new alienated social elite.
(e) A self-governing group contains its own supreme authorities – by definition, but also unlike, for instance, organs of participation, co-management or workers’ control, which have only advisory, consultative, or controlling functions and, at best, only share authority with political bureaucracy, capitalists or the techno-structure. ‘Self-governing’ institutions presuppose elimination of all ruling classes and elites; professional technical management must be subordinated to them. They create basic policy, formulate long-range goals, establish the rules, decide about cadre issues, and control the implementation of accepted policies.
(f) While there might be a plurality of organizations that mediate between people and self-governing institutions, none of them must be allowed to assert itself as a tutor of self-government. They can play useful and indeed necessary social roles: to express specific group interests, to politically educate people, to mobilize them for alternative programmes of development, and to contribute to the creation of a powerful public opinion. But none of them (be it a political party, trade union, church, or any other pressure group) must have control over the institution of self-government.
(g) All powers of self-governing bodies is delegated to them by their people and not allocated from the centre. When there is little alienation, it is always the lower level of social organization, closer to the base of the pyramid, which decides how much regulation, coordination and control is needed at the next highest level up. Thus the authority of any central federal assembly rests on that of, say, national assemblies – and ultimately on the basic working organizations and local communities.
Clearly, the problem is not only that of central decision making, but also of the source of authority for it. In a bureaucratic, repressive state, classical liberalist doctrines of social contract, sovereignty of the people and majority rule, serve to legitimate a situation in which all power stems from a relatively small oligarchy (even when it is considerably diffused and decentralized). In self-government, all power really originates from the councils in the social communities (even when much of it has been delegated to higher-level self-governing institutions).
If self-government is to replace the state in all its socially necessary functions, it has to embrace a network of councils and assemblies constituted at several levels of social reality, and on both territorial and productive principles. One would have to distinguish clearly among at least four levels:
- Basic organs to self-government in most elementary working and living communities;
- Organs of self-government in larger associations – e.g. enterprises, communes;
- Organs of self-government for whole regions and branches of social activity; and
- Central institutions of self-government, for the society as a whole.
All improvements in the structure of self-government make little difference if the whole political process is fully controlled by one or more political parties. The party, in the proper sense, is a political organization that struggles to win power, that is hierarchical and authoritarian, manipulative and ideological. Thus it shares the fate of the state. Both are incompatible with real self-government. The party will be transcended by a political organization that aspires to educate and not to rule, to prepare rational solutions rather than to decide about them, to build up criteria of evaluation rather than to evaluate itself, to engage in dialogues in order to clear up issues rather than to settle them, backed by governmental power. Under such conditions, pluralism of political life will no longer be pluralism of entrenched class interests struggling for domination, but pluralism of visions, of options, of imaginative approaches in a really free society.”