I Distrust Centralized Power Because I Am Wrong So Often

I'll start from the premise that I am often wrong. Each time I post I realize that something I've written is flawed, and I want to edit it to make it right. But then I note that even my edits are wrong, and I leave the post only almost satisfied.


I'm more convinced than ever, especially since I've started reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, that we all get things wrong. That book details the flaws of human reasoning. We support myriad positions based on intuitive thinking rather than deliberate thinking. We mock the positions of others even when our own reasoning is riddled with flaws and biases.


This is why I admire ancient Athens:
They, too, recognized that human reasoning is flawed. Their disdain for hubris led them to reject centralized power and establish instead a pure democracy. I like that idea so much that I want to live in ancient Athens (with suffrage for women, no slaves, and modern conveniences, of course)—a pure democracy on the scale of a city, population 250,000ish.


Think of what we have instead: A bloated corporatocracy that rules over 312 million people. My voice and your voice can't be heard over the moneyed interests.


But what if the federal government were limited to a stricter reading of the Constitution? What if momentous issues weren't decided by nine people on the Supreme Court? What if the federal government voted with a more rigorous interpretation of the tenth amendment?

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Such changes would not lead to Utopia (Athens still killed Socrates, after all) but it would make politics easier to manage, and it would open the door for more creativity and stronger communities. If the US transferred power from our centralized corporatocracy to communities, we would engage more frequently with our neighbors. We would hire more local journalists to hold more local politicians accountable. You and I would have a greater stake in our nation.


When power is centralized in a corporatocracy, errors can be catastrophic. Think of No Child Left Behind or the War in Iraq. When power is de-centralized, on the other hand, errors still occur, but they are more easily corrected. In addition, decentralized power means more power for each individual. The capacity for human greatness flourishes. Think of Athenian minds like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Aristophanes, Archimedes, etc.—minds superior to those in any civilization contemporary to them, minds that still have a center stage in contemporary universities.


In sum, when we limit federal government and expand communal government, we endorse the humbling idea that human reasoning, even expert reasoning, is flawed. It's an idea that arrogant Republicans and smug Democrats (there are many of both) seem to forget: We want neither side to have much power.