Centralization

“ Political centralization is the gathering of all the lines of governmental authority to a single head or point. Personal centralization, on the contrary, is the development in the individual of enlarging and joyous consciousness of his relations with his fellow-countrymen, and the bringing of the individual into increasingly immediate relations of interdependence with ever-increasing numbers of his fellow-men, economically, intellectually, and spiritually. ”

“ The administrative authorities, local and general, are, in theory, dependent on the sovereign power. To realise this ideal, is the direct end of centralization. It is, therefore, an instrument of good, in the hands of a good government: But is it not an instrument of evil in the hands of a bad one? We think it will appear, on a little reflection, that this seeming difficulty is nearly or altogether groundless. A regular administration is a complex and artificial machine. In a country not proportionally civilised, such a machine could not be constructed ”

“ In fine, if the form of the government be good, centralization, with the causes from which it springs, will enhance its good tendencies; if the form of the government be bad, they will go far to correct its bad ones. We are led to remark, by these considerations on the tendencies of centralization, that the utility of legislative and administrative improvements is far less doubtful than that of reforms in the constitutions of supreme governments. The good of the governed ought to be the end of government ”

“ 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 ”

“ If the organization of the system be crude and confused, the number, naturally, is comparatively large; if the organization be regular or systematic, the number, naturally, is comparatively small; for the more orderly the distribution of the various functions, the more easy is it, without damaging the efficiency of the system, to combine or cumulate functions in one and the same functionary. It is, therefore, the tendency of centralization, which supposes a regular administration, to reduce the functionaries required by the public wants to the lowest possible number. ”

“ It seems to be supposed by most of the writers who have treated of centralization, that homogeneity, or uniformity, of institutions constitutes its essence. They seem to suppose, for example, that where a government is perfectly centralized, one system of law obtains throughout the country; that the respective governments of the several localities have been cast in a common mould; that the departments and sub-departments of the general administration have been struck off from a common type ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who insist on the tendency of centralized and regular government to multiply functionaries beyond the public wants, seem to have intended another objection. It appears to us, that they mean to object to the policy of paying the requisite functionaries out of the public revenue; and to insist that the requisite functions might and ought to be performed by unpaid or voluntary officers. Now if an administrative system, managed by paid functionaries, be more efficient than a system abandoned to voluntary officers, the policy of paying functionaries is of the essence of centralization. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ What makes all researches into this branch of political learning particularly difficult, and perhaps for that reason also exceptionally fascinating, is the fact that federated states seem forever oscillating between the two extremes of complete centralization and decentralization. ”

“ That the countries ruled by centralized governments suffer from a needless multiplication of paid functionaries, is not disputed. The evil, however, arises from causes extrinsic to centralization. One of the main causes, in all those countries, is the over-governing with which they are oppressed; for, by needlessly enlarging the sphere of government-functions, it needlessly increases the number of government functionaries. ”

“ The concentration of administrative authority at one point has proved impracticable, first because of the great amount of red tape involved in the handling of the endless detail, and second because of the resulting destruction of initiative and enterprise. Such a centralization of social function would be just as cumbersome as a like centralization of all bodily functions in the higher brain centres. ”

“ In merely negating the speculative system, as in merely destroying accumulated capital, we will gain but little; for all life has a natural tendency toward centralization, combination and organization. ”

“ American government demands more rather than less centralization merely and precisely because of the growing centralization of American activity. The state governments, either individually or by any practicable methods of coöperation, are not competent to deal effectively in the national interest and spirit with the grave problems created by the aggrandizement of corporate and individual wealth and the increasing classification of the American people. ”

“ 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 labour, the trades and the professions, the arts and the sciences—all are organizing for pleasure, profit, policy, or intellectual pursuit. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But it appears clearly, from an obvious and decisive fact, that mere uniformity of institutions is not identical with centralization. This uniformity may exist, to an eminent degree, in a country ruled by a government which is not centralized at all; nay, in a country made up of states which are not subject to a common sovereign. The United States of America, though subject to a common sovereign, are loosely united by a federal union. ”

“ It makes little difference whether the differential advantage of centralization is of the nature of special privilege or superior efficiency of organization. In either case, industrial rivalry is forced from the field and, in the absence of official restraint, the exaction of monopoly charges is inevitable. ”

“ Meanwhile, under the stimulant of applied science, centralization went on resistlessly, and the cost of administration is proportionate to centralization. To bear the burden of a centralized government taxes must be equal and movement free, but here was a rapidly centralizing nation, the essence of whose organism was that taxes should be unequal and that movement should be restricted. ”

“ Upon some points these two kinds of centralization coalesce; but by classifying the objects which fall more particularly within the province of each of them, they may easily be distinguished. It is evident that a central government acquires immense power when united to administrative centralization. Thus combined, it accustoms men to set their own will habitually and completely aside ”

“ When centralization in the control of business brought its corresponding centralization in the organization of workingmen, new facts had to be appraised. A single employer might, as in this case, threaten the standing of the whole organization and the standards of all its members; and when he did so the union, in order to protect itself, would naturally refuse to work on his materials whereever found. ”

“ It is merely looking facts in the face, and realizing that centralization in business has already come and can not be avoided or undone, and that the public at large can only protect itself from certain evil effects of this business centralization by providing better methods for the exercise of control through the authority already centralized in the National Government by the Constitution itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the French revolution: the revolution brought it to perfection, but did not create it. The mania for centralization and government regulations dates from the time when jurists began to take a share in the government, in the time of Philippe-le-Bel ”

“ Industry, art, and knowledge fell into decay. Political education, science, and law were rendered subservient to the idea of State centralization. It was taught in the Universities and from the pulpit that the institutions in which men formerly used to embody their needs of mutual support could not be tolerated in a properly organized State; that the State alone could represent the bonds of union between its subjects ”

“ The less local initiative there is, the more centralization is required to keep the machinery running, until a point is reached where all power and authority are exercised from the centre, and the local group is as devoid of spontaneity as it is of authority. At somewhere about this point, the friction involved in administration becomes so great that the whole of the social energy is consumed in the routine of keeping the social machinery running, and there is no surplus, either for leisure or improvement. ”

“ To nationalize a people has never meant merely to centralize their government. Little by little a thoroughly national political organization has come to mean in Europe an organization which combined effective authority with certain responsibilities to the people; but the national interest has been just as likely to demand de-centralization as it has to demand centralization. ”

“ Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and their equalisation by taxation! ”

“ A strong centralization within the State may be the most hurtful kind of concentration, for it may more vitally affect the people at home. Here the question, remember, is not the most efficient formal administration, but the best results for the people. ”

“ There is the spirit of centralization, exalting the power of the state above the conflicting desires of the individual, and in economic matters hoping more from the intelligent initiative of the state as a whole than from the free competition of individuals, and assigning to the Federation tremendous undertakings, such as the irrigation of the West and the cutting of the Panama Canal. ”