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> I want stronger local government. Please, no. I get the rationale. It's the local knowledge problem, combined with state/federal being more likely to be popu

> I want stronger local government. Please, no. I get the rationale. It's the local knowledge problem, combined with state/federal being more likely to be populists. But local government irrecoverably sucks for systemic reasons that I've just started to notice. With local governance there is no way to resolve dilemma like incentives that cause negative sum decision making, i.e. locally good but globally bad policies. For example, restrictive planning laws. Good locally, terrible globally. So terrible that it is the kind of thing that is a threat to the stability of society. Another reason is that the competence of local governance is significantly lower than state/federal governance, who have budgets to hire actual intelligent experts. I don't know if you're interacted with local government officials. If you have, you will notice what I'm talking about. A third reason is that corruption is worse in local governments. It flies under the radar because they're not under the microscope of journalists. There's no good mechanism to decorrupt them. Good federal governance is the way forward.

int_19h 4y ago
I would argue that "good federal governance" is outright impossible in a country where, at any given point, ~half of the population will hate whatever that government does. Now you can argue that it's not actually half, and so long as it's less than that, a functioning democracy would allow you to steamroll over them. However, once enough people in a democracy consider it illegitimate, it stops functioning really fast.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  You don't avoid this by reducing federal scope and giving it to local. Say you achieve that goal, and then a populist gets in anyway. What happens then? Obviously they increase the scope, as all populists have done once they achieved power. The way you avoid this altogether is by creating good material conditions for people. One way you create good material conditions is by removing corrupt, vampiric local governments that contribute the opposite. Local governments are creating the conditions for populism by causing negative sum policies to add up to global tragedy. Also, goodness isn't a binary switch, and goodness needs to be compared with the alternative. I'd add that reducing local government doesn't mean that federal government has to be large and bloated. I still want a lean federal government. I can also never pin down exactly what advocates of larger local government actually want. What powers and capabilities, specifically, should be removed from federal and done by local?
  - int_19h 4y ago
    The way you avoid this altogether is by having a decentralized structure of governance such that the compromise of one node doesn't bring the rest down. If you want some specific arrangement to criticize, let's start with this: https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/ https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/

int_19h 4y ago

I would argue that "good federal governance" is outright impossible in a country where, at any given point, ~half of the population will hate whatever that government does. Now you can argue that it's not actually half, and so long as it's less than that, a functioning democracy would allow you to steamroll over them. However, once enough people in a democracy consider it illegitimate, it stops functioning really fast.

hackerlight 4y ago
You don't avoid this by reducing federal scope and giving it to local. Say you achieve that goal, and then a populist gets in anyway. What happens then? Obviously they increase the scope, as all populists have done once they achieved power. The way you avoid this altogether is by creating good material conditions for people. One way you create good material conditions is by removing corrupt, vampiric local governments that contribute the opposite. Local governments are creating the conditions for populism by causing negative sum policies to add up to global tragedy. Also, goodness isn't a binary switch, and goodness needs to be compared with the alternative. I'd add that reducing local government doesn't mean that federal government has to be large and bloated. I still want a lean federal government. I can also never pin down exactly what advocates of larger local government actually want. What powers and capabilities, specifically, should be removed from federal and done by local?
- int_19h 4y ago
  The way you avoid this altogether is by having a decentralized structure of governance such that the compromise of one node doesn't bring the rest down. If you want some specific arrangement to criticize, let's start with this: https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/ https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/