Decentralization

“ Precisely because decentralization departs drastically from tradition, we must nurture the process of change -- to ensure our local governments are empowered to cope, not just by law but by our aid and intervention in congress and the executive. ”

“ The decentralization^ as a form of cession of a competence to make decisions, practiced by State, that is central instruments which have their seat in the area, is displayed by means of dividing the country into prefectures, the local self-administration into municipalities, when a larger number of people are concerned, or communities for a smaller number of people. ”

“ And it undoubtedly is true that, compared with the system in operation prior to 1868, the present régime represents distinct decentralization. None the less it must be said that in practice there is ever a tendency on the part of the central authorities to encroach upon the privileges of the local governing agencies, and through several years there has been under consideration a reorganization of the entire administrative system in the direction of less rather than more liberalism. ”

“ Decentralization, as a national policy, must add depth to democracy, bring power closer to the people and creating optimum conditions both for the exercise of democracy and for the effective and efficient Fulfillment of government commitments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The old historic question of a centralizing tendency on one and a decentralizing tendency on the other side, or of a strong central power and of local self-government, which the Democratic party, as the advocate of decentralization, was in the habit of advancing as the vital issue of American politics, has also changed so much in some of its most important aspects, that the Democratic party itself would hesitate now to put it forward in the old form. ”

“ Equally important to the social revolution as independence from foreign lands is decentralization within the country itself. Internal decentralization means making the larger regions, even every community, so far as possible, self-supporting. ”

“ Decentralization, by the production of local interests, protects the poor printer in his efforts to establish a country newspaper, and thus affords to young writers of the neighborhood the means of coming before the world. Decentralization next raises money for the establishment of colleges in every part of the Union, and thus protects the poor but ambitious student in his efforts to obtain higher instruction than can be afforded by the common school. ”

“ Decentralization as a matter of mechanical convenience is possible after the central authority has drawn to itself all the prestige of political life, but384 this is purely administrative decentralization; when once the central government has absorbed the vitality of local political life, it cannot give back that which it has taken away. ”

“ Administrative decentralization may be mentioned as a plan adopted by some state legislatures to prevent the growth of cities, that is, to scatter the state institutions through the rural sections of the state instead of locating them in the cities. ”

“ In these times of change, America, founded on innovation and self-reliance, seems to forget its own philosophy of decentralization and non-hierarchy. By no surprise, the newer computer technology-based companies took the lead in decentralizing and networking the workplace, in re-engineering each and every business. Most business-people, especially in established companies, are reluctant to address matrix management methods or to use distributed forms of organization and decentralized structures. ”

“ Now this average should be kept just so low as to include within the beneficent influences of the national policy, all who can and choose to enjoy it without disturbing the general tendency of our legislation towards decentralization, and towards the enlargement of the rights of the individual man. When that tendency is reversed, it is a sign that the quality of the government is deteriorating. ”

“ To ensure a reasonable amount of decentralization the Supreme Government has made financial contracts with the provinces under which they receive definite shares of the receipts, and are responsible for definite shares of the expenditure, under particular heads. ”

“ And the special purpose of the decentralization and local self-government measures now being brought forward, is to substitute the best kind of native agency for the worst ; to revive the ancient activity of rural municipal life, and to entrust the village management to the decent quiet villagers themselves instead of leaving it to a swarm of greedy underlings attracted to the Government service, not by the scanty pay, but by the power they enjoy, and the unlimited opportunities for exaction. ”

“ The extreme decentralization of the legal government—the success of the constitution and laws in preventing the concentration of power at any one point in any one office in a legal government—is the very foundation upon which the existence of the extra-legal government rests. ”

“ Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place the whole people in a condition to read newspapers, while the same cause tends to produce those local interests which give interest to the public journals, and induce men to purchase them. ”

“ No student of Indian Finance, who is sufficiently acquainted with the branching off of the system in different directions, will fail to mark the inadequacy of the phrase Decentralization of Finance to mean Provincial Finance. If there were in the Indian system only the Provincial Decentralization there would have been no necessity to labour for a new title. As a matter of fact, the starting points of decentralization are by no means the same, and the systems evolved through it are quite different in character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Austen Chamberlain, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and representative in the House of Commons of the Postmaster General, the Marquis of Londonderry, said: “In a great administration like this there must be decentralization, and how difficult it is to decentralize, either in the Post Office or in the Army, when working under constant examination by question and answer in this House, no honorable Member who has not had experience of official life can easily realize. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There you have bureaucracy at its worst, authority in the hands of an appointive commission, thousands of miles, in many cases, from the place where it was applied, and a public feeling its impotence, which is the negation of self-government.
Then comes the first step in decentralization. No locality, no State was big enough to reach out and get back the authority over its own railroad service that it once had. But the organized farmers of the whole country were able to take into their hands the power over the railroads as it affected them. ”

“ In time these economic micro-regions may become to a large extent independent of outside interference. This may create a material basis for the introduction of a real - not merely theoretical - decentralization. ”

“ He must confine himself to the limited constitutional sphere of the executive. When a man becomes governor or president he must cease to be a citizen. The promotion of decentralization of governmental power through the creation of several new municipal corporations operating in the same district is a step which should always receive the favorable attention of the politocrats. The constant application of the elective principle to each newly created office must be maintained. ”

“ The decentralization of governmental power, as manifested in the multiplication of elective offices and the frequency of elections, has placed upon the voter—even when he is a most intelligent man—a [Pg 134] burden which he does not and practically cannot carry. ”

“ Article 108 The administrative organization of the State shall be governed by the principle of decentralization, in such a manner as to render the State power as much as possible more accessible to the citizens, and to accelerate the settlement of questions relative to administration and upon the basis of a more direct comprehension of the affecting circumstances. The central services must only have the general direction and superintendence. ”

“ The economy operates in accordance with five-year and annual plans that are all-encompassing and binding on all economic enterprises. Some attempts at decentralization have been made since 1968 in an effort to increase initiative on the part of lower level managers, but intransigence on the part of the hierarchy in releasing its hold has all but nullified the lukewarm reform efforts. ”

“ Decentralization was carried to its extreme limit, each centre undertaking responsibility as regards local finance and administration, whilst Berne reserved to itself the right of determining the pattern and quality of the article required from any one centre, at any given moment, a system which tended to co-ordination, and the specialization of each group in the class of work for which it was fitted, by its relation to the sources of supply and the aptitude of its workers. ”

“ For the evils of an alien and absentee landlordism, working through an agency of alien tax-gatherers, is substituted a system under which each village chief collects from the individual, and pays to a local district headman, who in turn pays direct to the Emir and Government This effects decentralization of native rule—which is no less important than decentralization by the Administration itself—and gives to the men who occupy positions of importance definite duties and responsibilities. ”

“ The first step, it seems to me, towards governmental reform, is decentralization, with a return to the States, the civic communities and the individual citizens of nine-tenths of the powers and the prerogatives that have been taken from them in defiance of abstract justice, of the principles of free government and of the theory of the workable unit of human scale. In a word we must abandon imperialism and all its works and go back to the Federal Republic. ”

“ Decentralization—the merging of the urban and rural into the suburban—only can remove the well-known antagonism between the interests of city and country. State political machines have been constructed upon the foundations laid and cemented by this mutual antagonism and distrust between the city man and the farmer. ”

“ In all such works as these, the majority of the people concerned are always ready to co-operate, and even the obstructive minority will in the end be gratified by the result. Instead of the impracticable dream of purely native self-government, if only a modest scheme of decentralization were introduced, every District Committee, without the worry and delay of repeated references for sanction to higher authority, would have certain limited funds of its own to lay out in the furtherance of local projects and the encouragement of native enterprise. ”

“ Provins affords an excellent example of that spirit of decentralization so usual in France, and unhappily so rare among ourselves. Here in a country town, numbering between seven and eight thousand inhabitants only, we find all the resources of a capital on a small scale; Public Library, Museum, Theatre, learned societies. ”

“ There will be a gain in decentralization, there will be a gain in honesty, there will be a gain in constructive political effort through the direct representation of the real interests of society in Congress.
Nor does there appear any danger of the break up into utterly unrelated minorities such as has taken place, let us say, in France and Germany. We have what most European countries has not, an elected Executive who plays an important part in legislation, the President with his veto power. ”

“ Maybe we can put up housing in such regions, but who can live there? Even with decentralization going full blast, people must live within reasonable access to their work. No, we're just running out of room. ”

“ Decentralization is what they want. To gain this point of control in the movement, they begin with the officials by saying they have too much power, and to break up the machine we must divide up in various parts, do away with the General Executive Board and the General Office. The first move ... was ... when the scheme of a Pacific Coast District Organization was launched under the mask of perfecting more organization [sic] in the I. W. W. At the [P. C. D. O.] convention held in Portland, Ore., they were to establish a western headquarters, ... ”

“ Nevertheless the forty-eight states are even yet very from being mere administrative divisions as are the counties of England or the departments in France. In these two countries the government is highly centralized; all power emanates from London or from Paris. In America the forty-eight state capitals are still the location of important governmental powers and in all probability will continue to be. This decentralization in government sometimes leads to friction and controversy; but it has the advantage of keeping the people in more direct control of their local affairs. ”

“ Already, thanks very largely to Socialist influences, decentralisation is beginning to appear in our system of administration, and we are preparing to consider views which will have very far-reaching practical importance regarding the relations between central and local legislation and administration. The tendency to decentralise will undoubtedly proceed part passu with the tendency of the state to co-operate more definitely with the individual in working out his liberty. ”