This is why I hate reading the kind of shallow historicism which shows up now and again in places like the NYT about how New Leftists spent more time reading Lenin and Mao than they did Locke or Hume. Shiny thirty-somethiings trained in the Columbia School of Journalism who literally know nothing about anything that happened before they were twenty. The latest versions of this sort of drivel appeared during the Ayers controversy — maybe you read some of them.

What makes me a leftist, as opposed to a paleoconservative, is that, apart from my choice of romanticisms, I have no objection to scale in government per se, and accept its necessary role in acting as a counter-weight to our malefactors of great wealth. This is a reasonable position to take, I think, even though I’ve also seen — as we all have — that social democracies can be hijacked as easily as revolutions.

So, the reservations expressed by the New Left about the authoritarian flavors of socialism apply equally to our ultramodern corporate states. As a social democrat of sorts, of course I see the irony when the so-called nanny state despised by conservatives and libertarians is co-opted and turned into an imperial state by an oligarchy which ignores the welfare of the polis. It’s just that I can’t say much about it without egging them on.

The basic problem is one of scale, or more properly the rigidity of control mechanisms which are simultaneously too narrow in their focus and too devastating in their effects– the political labels are less important, even though they have to be dealt with along the way.

Like it or not, I find management part and parcel of, akin to, regulation. And a well regulated commons is the key to survival. I suppose it is a matter of scale and locality.

For several election cycles, I did bend the ear of a former election judge during the lulls, about the importance of artists in transforming geography and making it desirable. I later learned he was on that economic development committee. I don’t really know if any of what I said made a difference, but I feel as if it did.

We’re going to need a lot of people like this — used to thinking in new ways — when we start to get serious about how to make steel in the future, or rebuild our cities into something more sustainable, or decide what comes after aircraft carriers.

I’m already working on follow-up posts which aren’t so much about what’s wrong, but about what, realistically, we can do about it. What do we know already, and what will we have to learn? The problem of scale not just described, but addressed. That oughta keep me busy for a while, I reckon….

The little community where I live is trying its best to implement some of those decentralization ideas…

A few years ago, the economic development committee managed to start a farmer’s market. We also have a new coffee and bake shop (not Starbuck’s– it’s independent) a couple of new restaurants, and I was finally able to contribute to something almost like a CSA, but without the large initiation fee. I can order what I like via email on a weekly basis, and the order form lists whether items are organic or IPM (integrated pest management). Then I pick it up on Saturday before I go to the farmers market.

Some of our businesses (the coffee shop and Mexican restaurant) have free wifi. We also have a new independent film venue. Only 41 seats, but it’s also a subscription-based video rental store.

Every year in September, there is an arts festival, with music, an art show, a few crafts, home-made food, and the like.

I’m on a committee that was initially trying get an informal film venue going. We originally used a church, but have since joined forces with the small theater (which did not exist at the beginning of our project), though we still hope to keep doing our own programming: documentaries, foreign films, interesting animation. We recently hosted a film in connection with a book that was our “one book, one borough” selection. The library had applied for a grant for the project, and had funds to help subsidize the film.

Of course, none of this happened until after many elections, when the Democratic party in this borough passed the tipping point, and could exercise some control over the agenda.

A few weeks ago, the local high school put on a global warming conference. The attendance was not large, but it was their first attempt. However, the content was excellent. And I think it’s going to be ongoing. One of my neighbors is a science teacher at the school and he was the faculty sponsor, and was also assisted by an English teacher with a lot of environmental knowledge at his finger tips.

The borough has had a single-stream recycling program for awhile, which they are considering expanding to weekly pick-ups, rather than the current bi-weekly pick-up. And there are plans to refine the program even more, both for environmental reasons and financial ones.

I wonder if such things could even be possible in a larger town or city. I honestly don’t know… but it does seem that the scale is important. Which was, I believe, one of the main points of this post.

truer words were seldom spoken and as Mr. Jackson (and Mr. Bush before) – has shown the world – this century might become THE century where every ’system’ which doesn’t ‘work’ anymore (including all these ‘isms’ like ‘capitalism’) – is destined for self destruction whatever the efforts to ‘prop’ it up –
And I feel bad now – because I realize it sounds pretty contra dictionary to my usual optimistic disposition. But I always hope that ‘hitting rock bottom’ might bring as much change as the Bush disaster has brought and if ‘the visionaries’ only would stop being so awfully ‘democratic’ (with all these wishy-washy compromises) it perhaps could become a respectful ‘oligarchy’ again –
just like in the good ole times of the founders!

That’s what I mean by technologies of decentralization. The Internet is one, certainly. Perhaps solar panels, or local food movements are another. None of them will come into being, though, unless we can find a way to stop putting so much energy and talent into defending what we already know is seriously flawed. A new way of looking at prosperity and growth would help, as would an understanding that power is a commodity with a rapidly diminishing marginal utility. Get enough of it, and you’re in as much or more trouble than if you had none.