Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Objection: Local Governments Can Do More Evil


OBJECTION: "Yeah, but on the other hand, if locality imposes evil upon their society, you can't object to it."

ANSWER: But you can object to it. And not only that, your objections can actually be heard by the persons with the power to change it, since they are not hundreds of miles away and ringed by lobbyists (who in all probability encouraged the politicians to enact the policy to which you object).  When central governments "impose evil upon their society", it is much harder to stop them and it is much harder to escape them.

Don't you see that the further removed the decision is from neighbors the easier it is to see them as faceless peasants? Your toes will be stepped on harder and more often, with less effective recourse by you, if decisions are made centrally than if they are made locally. 

Will that mean that more places will make decisions that you don't approve of? Maybe, but if your philosophy is at all in accordance with moral reality there should also be more places that will make more decisions which you do approve of. Quite honestly it would not take much to improve on the current track record of government interference in our lives. 

The rules you don't like would tend to be in a city where you don't live. On average, over time, everyone but the unappeasables would live in a place where the bar was set more in accordance with their liking than it is now. That is more freedom. When every county and city is free to set the bar where they will yet still none of them suit you, perhaps the problem is not with them!

I can object to it ultimately by going to the next city (Jesus said "when they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.") Localism greatly lowers the "transaction costs" of escaping from bad (for you, maybe good to those who stay) government. Thus the market will swiftly punish governments who make rules out of harmony with the moral order of the universe.

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