Essays in Idleness

Among my more indelible political memories was in an Ontario backyard. The provincial “conservative” party had recently swept to power in one of those “common sense revolutions,” and the gentleman I was chatting with had a plan to destroy the province’s municipal governments. He was also now the municipal cabinet minister, and thus at the head of the wrecking crew.

“David,” he explained to me affectionately, for he was arguably an old friend. “The local governments have been featherbedding.”

Astounding!

This I gathered is why they would be merged and centralized into bigger and bigger units, and put under more robust provincial control. Local governments would be losing power; the province’s local government bureaucracy would be vastly expanded. And after changing all the boundaries (so that, for instance, a unitary “City of Prince Edward County” was created to attract capital investment to a quaint, beloved, recumbent domain), very profitable automotive stripmalls could overspread the rural landscape.

I could not entirely blame my friend for these policies. He did not, after all, know what he was doing. Each measure, on its own, would pass the plausibility test for an incurious person. The rule of Chesterton’s Fence was being ignored. (Find out why something is there before you dismantle it.)

I fear that my anarchist expostulation, Tuesday, may have encouraged the fence-removers. But note that, while mentioning federal and provincial governments, I omitted municipal. Chester-Belloc’s further principle of subsidiarity applies especially to the smaller agencies. They should be comparatively ineradicable. (Call it “featherbedding” if you please.)

We need to totally exterminate socialism on its grand national, indeed international, scale. But capitalism should be demolished creatively instead. A huge multiplication of (scandalously independent) local governments, laws, customs, conventions, and rituals, is what I count on to drive the capitalists away.