Federalism and same sex marriage – part II

Part II – Federalism in the 21st century
(Part I of this series is here)

In the last few months I’ve had several fairly drawn-out conversations about federalism with some friends. I have taken the position that it is essentially anachronistic – a relic of the political compromises necessary to construct a union in the 18th century. That isn’t necessary a critique of federalism writ large; I am actually somewhat torn on whether it was a useful compromise in its context. On the one hand, I think there is a wonderful beauty to the Madisonian system, and it’s possible that the US would never have risen nearly as high or survived at all if they had adopted a more centralized government. On the other, federalism in its 18th and 19th century form was more than anything else a mechanism for the preservation of slavery. And it is not difficult to argue that the true boom in this country corresponds roughly with the post Civil War restructuring that massively boosted the power of the national government.

All that aside, I really see very little value in federalism in the 21st century. The post-modern form of politics requires ever-expanding zones of coverage to really work. As a result of federalism (and the broad sweep of checks and balances in general) we’ve got a system strong on veto points but weak on actual capacity to deal with the fast-moving crises that define the modern world.

Note that I don’t mean to denigrate localism as such. Clearly, it makes very little sense to expect Congress or the President to make local bond decisions for every little town in the country. I would be perfectly happy to support a system that retains a great deal of local control over most matters (and maybe even cedes a bit more local control), but which does so via delegation. That is: the national government lets most things run on their own, but when there is a conflict, the national side wins.

The arguments in favor federalism seem to fall into a couple general categories. 1) States are meaningful political/social entities that deserve their own sovereignty. 2) States are laboratories of democracy, which let us experiment. 3) There is value in checks and balances. Taking these on one by one:

1) While this was certainly true in the 18th century, it is far less true now. People are far more transitory these days, politics is far more nationalized, etc. States are actually a very weird entity these days – big enough that they aren’t really that ‘close’ but small enough that almost everyone in the country could drive for a few hours and cross into another state. This possibility of travel and movement also puts states in an awkward border space. If movement was genuinely free, states would matter again a LOT, because everyone could simply ‘vote with their feet’ and go somewhere else. However, while movement is much more free than 200 years ago, people are also still fairly closely tied to their location, particularly the poor.

2) There is certainly some force to the ‘laboratories of democracy’ argument, but I think it is also far less compelling than it once was. As politics is increasingly nationalized, there is far less room for this style of experimental democracy. On any issue that rises to national scrutiny, the vast majority of people will determine their position based on their national alignment. On far less politicized issues, there may well be some willingness to see what others do and adopt successful approaches. However, these are precisely the sorts of things that a governmental structure organized around delegation rather than federalism are most likely to still allow. If there is no macro-level fight, localities will often be free to experiment without national interference.

3) Checks and balances. This is the crux of the debate. I won’t really develop the point too much here, but I generally think that while there is of course some value in checks and balances, treating this as an intrinsic political good is thoroughly anachronistic. That is: checks and balances must serve specific and useful purposes, not be taken as a good in and of themselves. Our Constitution was written to replace the weak and crumbling Articles of Confederation, which lacked the power to achieve its national goals. While the 21st century Constitution is not in quite so dire straits, the analogy is a useful one.

Communication technology, speed of travel, growth of global trade, global war, global business…these things are problems on a scale that individual states simply cannot solve.

I don’t mean by any of this to deny that there are specific cases where state sovereignty produces clear positive results. I am very happy, for example, that at least a few states permit gay marriage. I love that California pushes beyond federal emissions standards. And so on. I just think that on balance, these positive results need to be weighed against the serious negatives.

In part III, which will probably be up tomorrow, I’ll return to gay marriage and federalism in particular.