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I thought this was already settled during the American Civil War, yet we're back at it again.

andsoitis 2y ago
Apparently not! An opposite question is interesting: why not abolish state governments and only have the federal government? I haven’t thought about it deeply so don’t have a strong sense that it would be better than the status quo, though I suspect it might.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  Centralization and size comes with inefficiency and slow decision making. It also comes with economies of scale. For something like the Medicare, the economy of scale dominates and it makes much more sense to be federal. When it comes to running schools, there really isn't much economy of scale so it makes much more sense to run it locally.
  - gottorf 2y ago
    Economies (and diseconomies) of scale exist, of course, but aren't central to what is the responsibility of the federal government and what is the responsibility of the state governments. That, of course, is laid out rather plainly in the founding legal document of the country.
- int_19h 2y ago
  The more people are ruled by a single government that is ostensibly a representative democracy, the less representative said democracy actually is. This should be rather evident - you can't grow parliament size indefinitely if you want it to continue functioning as a deliberative chamber, which in turn means that every parliamentarian represents more and more people, which in practice means that they don't represent them well.
deleted 2y ago
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ty6853 2y ago
The Civil War settled that the feds could rule over the explicitly authorized powers of the federal government. In the 30s the feds reneged and decided blatantly unconstitutional stuff like the (later passed) Civil rights act could hold if they just call everything interstate commerce. When the US falls apart this will be a likely central focus .
- andrekandre 2y ago
  how was the civil rights act not constitutional?
  - ty6853 2y ago
    CRA under the 1875 version was found unconstitutional per the Civil Rights Cases of the Supreme court [0]. In the 1930s the executive threatened to pack the supreme court and many analogous private/intrastate commerce regulations were allowed federally by this bastardization of 'interstate commerce' by the court. Then they repassed the CRA with yet again stuff found unconstitutional, using their new version of 'interstate commerce' (everything). The CRA objectively has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme court, and I believe it may be again under the latest generation of the court. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases
    - andrekandre 2y ago
      thank you for the reply so, probably restating what you said, if someone wanted to pass something like that, a constitutional amendment is the better way since relying on interstate commerce clause is shaky ground... is that right interpretation?
      - int_19h 2y ago
        Indeed. It should be noted that the Commerce Clause underpins most federal powers at this point. This is one of the big reasons why it's such a sacred cow - its ridiculousness is rather obvious, but all players have important things that depend on it that they don't want to risk losing.

Apparently not! An opposite question is interesting: why not abolish state governments and only have the federal government? I haven’t thought about it deeply so don’t have a strong sense that it would be better than the status quo, though I suspect it might.

fallingknife 2y ago
Centralization and size comes with inefficiency and slow decision making. It also comes with economies of scale. For something like the Medicare, the economy of scale dominates and it makes much more sense to be federal. When it comes to running schools, there really isn't much economy of scale so it makes much more sense to run it locally.
- gottorf 2y ago
  Economies (and diseconomies) of scale exist, of course, but aren't central to what is the responsibility of the federal government and what is the responsibility of the state governments. That, of course, is laid out rather plainly in the founding legal document of the country.
int_19h 2y ago
The more people are ruled by a single government that is ostensibly a representative democracy, the less representative said democracy actually is. This should be rather evident - you can't grow parliament size indefinitely if you want it to continue functioning as a deliberative chamber, which in turn means that every parliamentarian represents more and more people, which in practice means that they don't represent them well.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ty6853 2y ago

The Civil War settled that the feds could rule over the explicitly authorized powers of the federal government. In the 30s the feds reneged and decided blatantly unconstitutional stuff like the (later passed) Civil rights act could hold if they just call everything interstate commerce. When the US falls apart this will be a likely central focus .

andrekandre 2y ago
how was the civil rights act not constitutional?
- ty6853 2y ago
  CRA under the 1875 version was found unconstitutional per the Civil Rights Cases of the Supreme court [0]. In the 1930s the executive threatened to pack the supreme court and many analogous private/intrastate commerce regulations were allowed federally by this bastardization of 'interstate commerce' by the court. Then they repassed the CRA with yet again stuff found unconstitutional, using their new version of 'interstate commerce' (everything). The CRA objectively has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme court, and I believe it may be again under the latest generation of the court. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases
  - andrekandre 2y ago
    thank you for the reply so, probably restating what you said, if someone wanted to pass something like that, a constitutional amendment is the better way since relying on interstate commerce clause is shaky ground... is that right interpretation?
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Indeed. It should be noted that the Commerce Clause underpins most federal powers at this point. This is one of the big reasons why it's such a sacred cow - its ridiculousness is rather obvious, but all players have important things that depend on it that they don't want to risk losing.