The Localism Question
Perfect is the enemy of good. Those who sincerely believe in liberty and decentralization would be wise to mind this adage, lest they sabotage their own efforts and undermine their own principles.
Localization of power is a fundamental, necessary aim for those striving to maximize individual liberty and minimize the potential for intrusive, abusive government. Just as the standard “small government” conservative aims to decentralize power from the federal government to the state, so too must libertarians aim to decentralize from the state to the locality.
Taking this idea further, those truly striving for liberty and a voluntary society must be all the more radical, seeking to decentralize from the locality to the community, to the family, and ultimately, to the individual.
The liberty movement often pauses for an optics check upon use of the word “secession” but I will not hesitate to use it; if a libertarian really believes in decentralization, they believe in a gradual process of the secession of smaller scales of government.
So, it pains me to see some in the Montana liberty movement seeking to limit local government using the state. Before I get a lecture on how the state government generates local governments, and thus has power over them — I don’t care. You are confusing this “is” for an “ought.”
Of course, the gamble with decentralization and liberty is that people may not do with it as you would. Granting the freedom to experiment with new configurations of governance necessarily involves the possibility that the new governments will err in the same ways as those before them.
But that is a risk worth taking. I fully understand the logic of using state power to prevent worse abuses of local power. However, it undoubtedly compromises one’s claims to the principles of decentralization and limited government. In addition, the precedent of using the state government to stymy local experimentation is ripe to backfire on the liberty movement in the future.
This is not a matter of zoning, or federalism, or passing political matters. This is a matter of principles, consistency and a vision for the future. Localism is the friend of liberty. Holding on to the state’s power as a matter of convenience is exactly that: convenient. But it is not proper or an authentic expression of the value of liberty.
In this case, using the state to halt the development towards local control is winning a battle to lose the war. Using the state to stop the city is foolish, and frankly, appears hypocritical. Indeed, the way to counter local governments using their power poorly is to make sure your own city on a hill shines brightly upon them, setting an example instead of making one out of them.
As some say, “local control requires local responsibility.” So, don’t pass the responsibility for good governance off to the state.
