Centralism

“ The obvious truth is, that the over-governing imputed to centralization descends from states of society in which centralization was impossible. It comes from the crude conceptions of the legitimate province of government, which were naturally entertained by the middle ages and the ages immediately following them—ages which were just as incapable of centralized and regular government, as of conceiving the advanced science and the advanced industry which (like centralization) are products of a high civilization. ”

“ All in all the Revolution did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is the loud and unanimous outcry vibrating in all hears.3103—To calm things down, many novelties are required: To start with, the political and administrative concentration just described, a centralization of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the central power, and, to exercise this supreme power a resolute chief, equal in intelligence to his high position. ”

“ Though gifted with all the blessings of nature's virginal vitality, you would never have succeeded to achieve this wonderful growth which we see, if you had employed your conquered national independence merely to take a new master for the old one.
And mark well, gentlemen! a nation may have a master even if it has no king—a nation may be called a republic, and yet be not free—Wherever centralization exists, there the nation has either sold or lent, either alienated or delegated its sovereignty ”

“ A perfect definition of centralization would involve a definition of sovereignty and independent political society; but since a definition of these fundamental notions would not consist with our limited purposes, we confine ourselves to the following assumptions:—That every political society is subject to a person or persons who may be styled the sovereign: That the political powers, active or passive, of this individual or body, are not limitable by positive law ”

“ The wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike is known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage or centralization has been such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the pulse of the world. And because of all this, everywhere is growing order and organization. The church, the state; men, women, and children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and the thief, industry and commerce, capital and labor, the trades and the professions, the arts and the sciences, — all are organizing for pleasure, profit, policy, or intellectual pursuit. ”

“ But if a government really centralized supposes a people highly civilised, the tendencies of such a government (whatever be the form of the sovereignty) will be beneficent in the main. The notions of the people about the ends of government, and about the means of attaining them, will be enlightened and just. As holding the same notions, or in its own despite, the government will aim at the ends sanctioned by a commanding opinion; and the administrative authorities, as its obedient instruments, will keep to the line of duties which is set to them by government and people. ”

“ That a nation may manifest itself in its unity, it must be centralized in its religion, centralized in its justice, centralized in its army, centralized in its agriculture, industry, and commerce, centralized in its finances,—in a word, centralized in all its functions and faculties; the centralization must work from the bottom to the top, from the circumference to the centre; all the functions must be independent and severally self-governing. ”

“ In these illusory interests, and the exclusive local patriotism from which they arise, lies the difficulty of determining the constitution and attributes of the local governments. For these illusions, as for other social evils, the spread of sound opinions on economical, political, and other social questions, is the only effectual cure. Till these opinions are more extensively diffused, local institutions which are deeply rooted in such prejudices ought to be touched by governments with a cautious hand. By handling them roughly, a government would defeat the ends at which centralization aims ”

“ I do not ask for over-centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we deal with what concerns our people as a whole. I no more make a fetish of centralization than of decentralization. Any given case must be treated on its special merits. ”

“ It is clear that the centralised and therefore rigid system of government tends to accentuate, among the people subjected to it, their tendency to rely on authority and to repress individual initiative; while the other form, such as obtains in this country and still more in the United States of America, tends to the development of the initiative and independence of individuals, giving them free scope and throwing them upon their own resources. ”

“ But in a country whose government is centralized, the administrative system is highly regular. A high civilisation, therefore, is an imperative moral condition of centralization. In imperfectly civilized countries whose governments are apparently centralized, (as, for example, Russia,) the centralization is merely formal. In such a country, the administrative authorities, however perfect their arrangement, are not practically dependent on the sovereign power; since the end of the elaborate and well-meant system is defeated or thwarted by causes lying in the barbarity of the nation. ”

“ Of the many misconceptions of centralization which have fallen under our observation, the following, we think, are the most prevalent and important:—1. It is confounded with over-governing. 2. It is thought incompatible with the spirit, if not with the forms, of free or popular government. 3. It is thought incompatible with local governments of local and popular origin. 4. In France, Prussia, and other continental countries, the governments of localities, with the lower branches of the general administration, are controlled to excess by the heads of the latter ”

“ If the material conditions of life of society have so far developed that the transformation of their official political shape has become a vital necessity for it, the entire physiognomy of the old political power undergoes a transformation. Thus absolute monarchy now aims at decentralization, instead of at centralization, wherein consists its proper civilizing activity. ”

“ Centralization succeeds more easily, indeed, in subjecting the external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which at last commands our regard, independently of the objects to which it is applied, like those devotees who worship the statue, and forget the deity it represents. Centralization imparts without difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of business; provides for the details of the social police with sagacity; represses the smallest disorder and the most petty misdemeanours; maintains society in a statu quo alike secure from improvement and decline ”

“ It appears, therefore, that where a government is really centralized, it governs by maxims which are good in themselves, and which are also consecrated by a formidable public opinion. But since constitutional securities for good government rest immediately on the same moral power, those maxims are equivalent, in no inconsiderable degree, to these more formal guarantees; insomuch, that a government which is not popular in form, but which is really or effectually centralized, will be administered in the spirit of governments which are popular in form and substance. ”

“ It is the rule of Almighty Beneficence, which, while leaving human beings to the activities of daily life and the consciousness of free-will, subjects all to the same commanding principles. Such centralization is the highest civilization, for it approaches the nearest to the heavenly example. Call it imperialism, if you please: it is simply the imperialism of the Declaration of Independence, with all its promises fulfilled. ”

“ Yet if society be, as I assume it to be, an organism operating on mechanical principles, we may perhaps, by pondering upon history, learn enough of those principles to enable us to view, more intelligently than we otherwise should, the social phenomena about us. What we call civilization is, I suspect, only, in proportion to its perfection, a more or less thorough social centralization, while centralization, very clearly, is an effect of applied science. ”

“ The process of centralization is not, like the process of nationalization, an essentially formative and enlightening political transformation. When a people are being nationalized, their political, economic, and social organization or policy is being coördinated with their actual needs and their moral and political ideals. Governmental centralization is to be regarded as one of the many means which may or may not be taken in order to effect this purpose. Like every other special aspect of the national organization, it must be justified by its fruits. ”

“ When conditions so changed that government could free itself from its dependence on the baron, feudalism disappeared as the organization of society; when a professional class arose to form the judiciary, when the increased circulation of money made regular taxation possible and enabled the government to buy military and other services, and when better means of intercommunication and the growth of common ideas made a wide centralization possible and likely to be permanent. ”

“ I. Centralization, as it is commonly conceived, is mistaken for over-governing. A centralized government, according to the same conception, is an over-regulating, over-restraining, over-protecting government;—paternal, as its friends would call it; a pestilent busy-body, as it would be called by its enemies. We think that this is the conception which is commonly associated with the word; and our impression is confirmed by two of the books whose titles we have prefixed to this Article—De la Liberté du Travail, by Mr Dunoyer; and Notes of a Traveller, by Mr Laing. ”

“ The first French revolution, having as a mission to sweep away all local, territorial, urban and provincial special privileges, with the object of establishing the civic unity of the nation, was hound to develop what the absolute monarchy had begun—the work of centralization, together with the range, the attributes and the menials of government. ”

“ As part of the same law, we see that the existence of the society at large exceeds in duration that of some of these compound parts. Private unions, local public bodies, secondary national institutions, towns carrying on special industries, may decay, while the nation, maintaining its integrity, evolves in mass and structure.
In both cases, too, the mutually-dependent functions of the various divisions, being severally made up of the actions of many units, it results that these units, dying one by one, are replaced without the function in which they share being sensibly affected. ”

“ II. The misconception which we have examined confounds centralization with over-governing. By the mistake which we shall now consider, it is deemed incompatible with the substance or spirit of what is commonly called free government.
Where the sovereign power resides in a body of persons, forming a fraction of the society, which may be deemed a large one, the government is popular or democratic; or, at least, the constitution of the government partakes largely of the popular or democratic element. ”

“ In the course of our experience in democracy, we have developed many checks against too great centralization. I hope that we may develop the checks effectively in this new welfare work in agriculture, a desire that I am aware is also strong with many of those who are concerned in the planning of it.
Some enterprises may be much centralized, whether in a democracy or elsewhere ”

“ The danger of centralization, greatly to be apprehended while the present condition of things lasts, and growing as it continues, will then have passed away; and, by strictly acknowledging and faithfully performing their constitutional duties, the States will save their rights. ”

“ Some people confuse the terms and ideas, concentration and centralization. Proper concentration in complete units by an earlier convergence of authority permits decentralization in administration. A lack of such early concentration makes centralization inevitable. ”

“ These are used in monarchies, to maintain and perpetuate monarchy; and they are used in governments of popular form and appearance, to render the government, in substance and spirit, a monarchy or narrow aristocracy.—The alleged needless multiplication of paid functionaries, is manifestly the only basis on which the reasoning rests. But assuming that countries ruled by centralized governments suffer from this evil, the evil may inhere in centralization, or it may arise from causes extrinsic to centralization. ”

“ It contributes, at least, in a high degree, to accomplish a principal end of centralized and regular government;—the giving the greatest efficiency, as well as the greatest order, to the administrative system of the country. ”

“ True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery. ”

“ Abstracting causes extrinsic to centralization, it is not the interest of a centralized government to multiply functionaries beyond the wants of the country. By this abuse of the administrative institutions, it disgusts and alienates the intelligent and impartial public; and, in civilised communities, it is only in their esteem and considerate attachment, that any government, at the long run, can find efficient support. ”