Implementing Democratic Subsidiarity

To make our system more successful we need to apply principles of Democratic Subsidiarity. I add the adjective "democratic" because without democratic features subsidiarity risks becoming a means for affirming updated forms of feudalism. The European Union is running into this problem because they can't agree and are afraid to enforce democratic or even representative principles when applying the principle of subsidiarity.

The notion of Democratic Subsidiarity hails from conservative arguments logically applied to good government:

"Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority."

Subsidiarity also is a term that hearkens back to Europe's Dark Ages and Feudal System. So beware of simplistic arguments!

In the context of Federations and confederations, this principle has to guide function for the members of a loose Federated government to be willing to join the confederation. However, not all political decisions logically are the jurisdiction of local authority. General decision making has to be a collective function of centralized authority mediated by leadership and some amount of coercive authority or Federations tend to be temporary and fly apart at the first sign of strain. General functions require that both local and central decisions be taken deliberately and with republican and democratic principles respected. Moreover, local functions usually require some sort of General support. For example the European Union created a monetary condominium with central banking managed chaotically under influence of centralized bankers. The result was that local governments weren't subject to rational accounting controls while at the same time the bankers were able to prey on local people and businesses without even the ability to fiscally assist local government. On the contrary local and national governments have been under the rule of compound interest and debt for money that rightfully should have belonged to the people as a whole. Creating the Euro was a good idea. Letting private banks govern it, not so good. Talking about subsidiarity without ordinary controls (regulations and rules) over local spending coupled with government that provides sufficient money to float an economy, is creating government without the tools to even survive.

Thus, Ironically, subsidiarity only works if it also encompasses republican and democratic principles.

1. Republican principles include representation, separation of powers, and majority rule as a threshold for decision making. Democratic
2. Democratic principles = governments that involve as many as possible of the ordinary people affected by them (within their jurisdiction).

Without representation consent of Governed of the governed becomes impossible. Countries without strong representative and rule of law principles tend to fly apart when people have minor disagreements and break out into warfare when they have major ones. Subsidiarity is a valid principle for some kinds of decisions and areas of government. Likewise governments without an informed and involved citizenry tend to be governed corruptly and poorly. "Competent authority" requires democratic controls (oversight). Subsidiarity requires both tools, privileges, checks and duties. Subsidiarity is a valid principle, but not by itself and not without that attribute "Democratic" added.

Machine Jeremiah

When the robots replace the Troopers

and Sentinels stand

at every city corner

and throughout all the lands.

 

Then people will fear no robber,

but will come to fear the machines.

For they will have nothing to eat for dinner

But dust and dirt and bile.

 

When floods come to the coastal cities

And droughts to all the plains

And the waters are all polluted

with poisons, oil and toxic fumes.

 

Then people will find no end to hunger

But disease, rot and stench

And the wealthy will retire to their bunkers

til it is their turn to die.

 

When the Machines replace the Troopers

Then the Cylons will go on the march

And mankind may disappear in fumes of Sulfur

Clothed skeletons unburied in the dust.

 

Then the skeletons of misers

will mingle with those of paupers

And the machines will bury themselves

and no life remain anywhere.

 

But Cold Sentinels will stand

dangling purple threads.

At the corners throughout the land

With Rusting computer voices

Gravelly and forgotten yet still remain.

To tell the winds our lives were in vain.

 

Christopher H. Holte 12/8/2016

Promises to keep

All I had to do

Was keep a promise to you

And that is what I did

For your kid.

 

Time went on by

He learned how to fly

And then off he flew

In the sky

 

Now all I have to do

Is to keep a promise to you

To think of you each day

In the time that remains.

 

Time like sand

Sometimes more like a razor

To cut off a strand

Of something we love

 

Are we kidding ourselves

Do our loves really wait for us

At the end of our time

When our light grows dim?

 

Or is there some reality

Certainly not this one.

Where angels await us

Swimming in the light?

 

Or is it true

That the only thing waiting for us

Is a quiet shadow

That turns out the night.

 

It's all I can do

To soldier on through

Put one foot in front of the other

Til I can walk no more.

 

And when my labors are over

And the aches are too much

I lay myself down

And pray myself to sleep.

Christopher H. Holte

The poem contains an homage to Robert Frost and one of my favorite poems:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42891

The Trumpster dumps Lee Atwater's Advice

Back in June (16, 2016) I was listening to a GOP TV spin doctor explaining how Donald Trump's racist, xenophobic and inflammatory language is actually a Good Thing!. I can't recall which Channel it was or which Spin Doctor (there were a lot of them) but as I expected this lead trial balloon actually flew among the Righties and the GOP manipulators who go along with this sort of thing. Trump's leadership fit the EMAD profile! Altemeyer was writing about this years ago. All that was missing from the list of features of a Fascist movement was the fearless leader and Brownshirts. Trump provided the fearless leader our many fascists were looking for!

Trump's call to Taiwan is an example of him behaving like Fascist leaders in the past.

Democratic Capitalism and it's Discontents -- Review of Brian C. Anderson's book

Attack of the Pseudo Intellectual

Been reading "Capitalism and it's Discontents". I literally disagree with 90% of the author's opinions. But his facts are fascinating even if I find myself drawing opposite conclusions from many of them. The book is worth a critical read.

Critique of Empires

I found myself agreeing with his critique of the book "Empire" by Hardt and Negri, while failing to be convinced by his defense of globalization. The fact is that Negri and Hardt are right when they talk about globalization causing misery. The misery of globalization is blowback from how it occurs. Not the fact that it occurs. At the same time he is right that we don't need to eradicate "private property", celebrate revolutionary violence, whitewash any form of totalitarianism, nor pour contempt on our more democratic republican societies. By not doing a real analysis of what Negri and Hardt says, and dismissing it with a similar kind of contempt to that he sees in their writings -- he sets up the rest of his book as an attack on the same societies that Negri and Hardt attack -- but from the other direction.

An Uncivil attack on States Serving their people

But then after critiquing Negri's attack on the modern world from the left, his next chapter "From State to Civil Society" he tries to level a similar attack on social welfare. He celebrates economic dysfunction, "pour[s] contempt" on "the state" (using the term "statist") to describe social services and ignores the impact of the things that Negri and Hardt rightly described thus whitewashing the impact of laissez faire capitalism.

Misrepresenting Subsidiarity

He also deliberately misrepresents the concept of subsidiarity, using it as a classic strawman. He quotes John Paul II's Centessimus Annus and then claims that:

"These problems flow from the welfare state's violation of the classic Catholic principle of subsidiarity."

He goes on to define the problem:

"a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the later of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help it coordinate its activity with the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."

He then goes on to claim that with subsidiarity "responsibility should rest first with the individual and then in ascending order with those nearest..." "and finally-only as a last resort-the state."

Subsidiarity as Dogma versus prescription for improvements

Thus he states dogma when he could offer suggestions for delivering services more efficiently. He rightly criticizes bureaucratic government and the centralization that makes welfare pernicious. But he fails to recognize that the real problem with social welfare is that modern states, like the Catholic Church itself, by centralizing and hoarding resources deprive local authorities of the resources they needy in order to meet their needs. The modern state deprives local communities of the sorts of decision making authorities and structures -- local government -- that they need in order to meet their own needs. It is precisely because poor neighborhoods are poor that drug addiction, illegitimacy, unemployment and blight ravage neighborhoods. It is precisely because our system robs workers of income, robs wannabe workers of work, and makes it impossible for renters to own their homes or be safe and secure in their persons, that welfare became necessary as a kludge to replace functions that once were done by local parishes and community associations. He blames the victims.

He attacks welfare with all the thoughtless tropes of Right Wing intellectuals. In the process he confuses cause with effect, and deliberately ignores the role of racism, classicism and wealth in setting up the poor to fail. He gives lip service to "self governing adults" -- but that has to be part of the setup of local government. It can't be a tool to bash those living in cities or denied the protection of legislative, judicial and executive representation. Public welfare, should indeed be a responsibility of individuals and local government using the principles of financial and political subsidiarity. But they should be supported and supervised by people representing general government.

Using Jouvenal to attack Democracy

Rather than state his own ideas, Anderson quotes Bertrand de Jouvenal, to blame the enlightenment and democracy itself as the cause of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Jouvenal was a fascist in the 30's. And that regressive attitude informs Anderson's book and his review of his writings. He identifies "Power" with the "Minotour" of Minoan myth. He claims that western democracies embrasure of dominance, which he dismissed earlier when he criticized "Empire", leads to totalitarianism. He identifies this with the doctrine of the "people" claiming that the problem is the denial of divine lawmaking in favor of human lawmaking. Rule of law with popular sovereignty. And then claims that a loss of "objective standards" leads to a moral relativism, selfishness and an erosion of civil society. In his mind the threat comes from secularization. His book in general discounts the role that authoritarianism exerts in fueling totalitarianism. Jouvenal himself was an authoritarian. His vision of a restored order to society was fascist.

But Anderson soft pedals that side of the story. He is right that demagogues take advantage of the people and stir up mobs in the name of restoring some vision of a utopian past civil order, that usually never existed. But usually the demagogues use religion as a tool and themselves are expert practitioners of the tools of sophism. Persons who are Exploitive, Manipulative have an Amoral orientation and are Manipulative, tend to be perfectly willing to use notions of rule of law and civil behavior to dominate and control mobs from among the masses of people. Both direct democracy, other forms of order and "thick community" may be impossible in our modern world at the level of general government, but they are possible and plausible if governments are organized as federated hierarchies. He is right to identify that "noxious activities" should be prohibited. But Jouvenal, and therefore Anderson, offers a dour analysis, with no prescriptive power. He argues against redistribution without even trying to refute the evils of monopoly and massive inequality he dismissed so readily earlier but admits in his discussion of Jouvenal.

He finishes his book with an effort to resurrect a zombie version of Sartre and concludes his book "we need no ideologies, no programs...but by connecting with our preliberal past..." Oh God, spare me a return to the middle ages! Read this book critically folks.

Sources and Further Readings

Brian C. Anderson: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/expert/brian-c-anderson

https://www.amazon.com/Democratic-Capitalism-Discontents-Brian-Anderson/dp/1933859245

Balancing Budgets As Financial Warfare on Ordinary People

An actual country is an economic unit with a government. Balancing a countries "budget" should not be about the countries money supply primarily, but about the resources, capabilities and production necessary to the health of that country and its relations with its neighbors and trading partners. Money measures economic wealth and enables trade, taxes and sales of production. A country's budget is not solely about its bank account but about the people living in that country and their bank accounts. And in the modern world, no single country stands alone, rather we all must work together. Thus as Henry George prescribed 120 years ago and James Galbraith has demonstrated in his writings:

“In a successful financial system, there must be a state larger than any market. That state must have monetary control – as the Federal Reserve does, without question, in the United States.” [Review of The Poisoned Challice]

EMAD Trump -- why the wheels won't come off in Time

An article in The Globe by Thomas Homer Dixon tries to find a rainbow in all the storm clouds. But I'm afraid it doesn't work for me. He describes the Trumpenführer as a Social Dominator:

"like a bizarre hybrid of an idiot savant and a Mafia don." Who is "scarily brilliant when it comes to understanding and manipulating a crowd’s emotions, especially its anger and fear."

Problem is that he could be describing Hitler or Mussolini. In fact Thomas Dixon is describing the classic dictator personality of what Altemeyer describes as the "Socially Dominant" Demagogue! He is describing Trump's epitomizing the EMAD Scale:

E: Trump is Exploitive!

M: Trump is Manipulative!

A: Trump is Amoral

D: Trump is Deeply Dishonest

E.M.A.D!