Fwd: New Common Sense: Will Bureaucracy Kill Self-Government?

New Common Sense Applying First Principles to the Issues of Today At Heritage What can you do to restore liberty in America? Check out Heritage's new Patriot's Guide. Happy Birthday Alexis de Tocqueville! Why is he still relevant after all these years? Around the Country A Battle is Brewing: First, William Voegeli wrote a book, Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State. Then, George Will praised the book and endorsed the central argument. But, Salon's Michael Lind attacked Voegeli and Will and accused certain scholars (including many of our friends) of unfairly maligning contemporary liberalism. Now, William Voegeli replies to Lind in National Review Online. Quick Thoughts The Constitutional Accountability Center wants to join the conversation about the Constitution. Too bad that they misunderstand the Constitution, the Founders, and the contemporary debate. Which Supreme Court Justice refused to hire women? Hint: he denied the self evident truth of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." What We're Reading: The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide by Seth Lipsky.    Will Bureaucracy Kill Self-Government? We have all been plagued by it at some point in our lives: in our schools, in our offices, and now—even more so—in our health care. How did our lives become so overrun by petty tyrants of bureaucracy? Was this trend inevitable in American politics or was it a "creature of the choices made well within living memory"? In "Bureaucratic Tyranny or the Renewal of Self Government: The Beginning of Centralized Administration in America," the late John Adams Wettergreen argues that "the most serious ills of American government are due to bureaucratization," also known as the "centralization of administration." But, centralized administration is a creature of 20th century decisions and does not need to be the future of American politics. To be clear, centralization itself does not lead to bureaucracy. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his seminal work Democracy in America, distinguishes between centralized government and centralized administration: "Certain interests are common to all parts of the nation, such as the enactment of its general laws and the maintenance of its foreign relations. Other interests are peculiar to certain parts of the nation, such as local enterprises. When the power that directs the former or general interests is concentrated in one place or in the same persons, that is centralized government. To concentrate in like manner the direction of the latter or local interests, I call centralized administration." Since government relates to "general or national interests" and administration "is proper to personal or parochial interests," centralization of the former enables self government, but the latter leads to the soft despotism of bureaucracy. American politics did not fully embrace the centralization of administration and the bureaucratic state until the Great Society under President Lyndon Johnson. In this period, the "public sector" assumed vast new authority and proceeded to regulate every aspect of American life. For instance, Wettergreen argues that "when the American government, in principle, assumed responsibility for the socioeconomic well-being of every American, it also had to introduce programs for managing, in detail and from the center, the relations between the races, the sexes, employees and employers, electors and elected, state and local governments and their citizens, consumers and producers, husbands and wives, parents and children, and so on." The Great Society aimed to take away the "trouble of thinking" and the "pain of living," to use Tocqueville's words. Centralized administration is still a grave threat to America self government (look no further than the health care bill and the financial regulation bill for proof). Yet, we are not destined for bureaucracy; we would have to choose it. We are at a cross roads in American politics: one path leads to greater centralization of administration and bureaucratic despotism; the other path decentralizes administration and emphasizes individual self-government. Which path will you choose? Keep Reading about the Choice Between Bureaucracy and Self Government                        Forward this message to a Friend!   Quote of the Week                            If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. ~ James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton For more quotes, visit westillholdthesetruths.org About The Heritage Foundation Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute -- a think tank -- whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 | 202.546.4400