The American Devolutionary War
Prior to 1765, the American colonies were left largely to govern themselves. Britain attempted to enforce stricter authority following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. The American colonies, unfortunately for Britain, had become accustomed to self-government over the course of the previous 150 years. You heard right … 150 years.
The 150-year period of self-governance resulted in stable and confident governments, and a collective identity separate from Britain. The historical reasons for this period of so-called salutary neglect are still debated in historical circles, likely a combination of conscious policies, imperial malfeasance, and luck.
During the Revolutionary War, the colonies organized the first federal government under the Articles of Confederation. Though adopted in 1777, the Articles did not go into effect until 1781 when the last of the colonies finally adopted them. The war ended in 1783.
The Articles of Confederation remained in place until 1789 when they were replaced by the Constitution. For well over a decade, the American colonies managed to govern themselves (half the time in a state of war) without a strong central government. Under the Articles of Confederation, the States effectively returned to the condition of salutary neglect they had enjoyed prior to 1765, but without being under the umbrella of a significant central authority.
The States ultimately concluded that their Articles of Confederation did not provide a sufficiently strong central government, and that the extremely weak Articles may have been an over-reaction to their fear of what had occurred under British rule.
The primary complaints were that the central government had no ability to effectively mobilize a military, nor sufficient authority to protect prosperous commerce both between the States and with other nations. The Articles of Confederation included no Executive or Judicial branches. Shay’s Rebellion (a large armed uprising against perceived economic and civil liberty injustices) in 1786–87 was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
The framers of the US Constitution sought to remedy the weaknesses in the Confederation by establishing a more powerful central government. But they did not want a government that infringed on the freedoms the States enjoyed during salutary neglect. The Bill of Rights was passed to enshrine additional constraints intended to protect the actions of individual citizens in addition to those of state governments.
The constraints enshrined by the US Constitution may have at least slowed the federal government’s growth for more than two centuries. But there’s no question that government plays a much larger role in our lives today than it did in the colonies 250 years ago.
Some would argue that this is a good thing, that the more populous, more interdependent, and more complex world we live in today requires a larger role for more collective national decision-making. After all, the largest of the thirteen colonies, Virginia, had a population of only 500,000 people. The average colony population was less than 200,000. The US now has over 100 cities with populations larger than 200,000 and over 30 larger than 500,000.
But more centralized governance may not be what is needed. The more interdependent and complex a society becomes, the more likely it would benefit from dispersed decision-making authority. Top-down management becomes, less just say, unmanageable. An interesting study done on the organization of US Navy aircraft carriers would seem to bear this out.
Spontaneous order among humans springs naturally from complex — and largely voluntary — transactional networks. Humans are social animals whose brains have evolved to support extraordinarily complex social interactions. Those interactions were more easily managed when we lived in small tribal groups. As civilizations evolved, organizations outgrew hunter-gatherer tribes, culminating in today’s nation-states. The success of nation-states as organizational structures has led some to believe that more top-down control is needed to deal with the increasing complexity of the world we live in.
That is unlikely to be true.
In nature, plants and animals that are overly specialized often become extinct when their environment changes suddenly. Likewise, top-down approaches to organizations invariably lead to rigid and sclerotic ways of governing. Governments (and for that matter, large organizations of all types) invariably end up being poor at adapting to new situations.
Just as in nature, when there are multiple organizations and multiple individuals engaged, the sclerotic failures of a few don’t result in mass failure. When government retains its monopoly on action (especially in collusion with large commercial entities), rigid and sclerotic becomes the only game in town. Those who desire a strong central state often fail to take into consideration such failures from the past.
It could even be argued that today’s levels of centralization have actually led to more chaos, not less. Massive increases in laws (many that aren’t enforced) create an ever-expanding legal terrain that is increasingly harmful to individual action and innovation.
And even those who ostensibly favor free markets often prefer strictures that are in fact less free. Some of our largest and most powerful companies prefer a strong central government to have more power over their actions, rather than either local governments or individuals. You have heard the arguments:
- “We need to have uniform and predictable regulations.”
- “Broad economic benefit is more important than local concerns.”
- “Things just work better this way.”
Often what they really mean is that it’s much easier to lobby one governmental body than hundreds.
To adequately deal with the complexities of our modern world, we need to let go of our illusion of control. And then let go of our fear of local and individual exercises of power. The downsides of centralized governance are far greater than those of dispersed and diverse power in the hands of individuals, small groups, and local governments.
“Devolution” is a word that describes the transfer of power from more centralized to less centralized governing authorities. Unfortunately, the word also has the connotation of being a kind of reverse evolution, that is, moving from more advanced to more primitive forms. This linguistic confluence perhaps explains some of our collective penchant to believe in the superiority of strong central governments.
This is not to suggest that there aren’t certain actions best suited to more centralized governance. The US Constitution’s Bill of Rights, for example, enumerates many basic rights that neither lower levels of government nor individuals should be allowed to diminish.
The aftermath of our experiences of the last four years of centralized governance should give us pause (if it hadn’t already). Now would be an excellent time for a national debate about what forms of political power should be devolved from the federal government to state governments, local governments, and individual citizens.
