eCon 402 — dCon Mechanisms
How does control get decentralized into the hard ground of human affairs?
Fractiousness, self-interest, Twitter, Antifa, the DOJ, DOE & FDA — it’s tough out there. The forces of cCon and disorder run rife through society, rough and ready to sabotage the forces of natural progress.
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There are three Decentralized Control Mechanisms: one primarily political, the others primarily economic.
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Democracy
Democracy is the original dCon mechanism and still the most miraculous invention known to man. Women take to it like birds to flight.
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Direct, representative, parliamentary, republican, at the national level they’re all good. Not unalloyed, but good nonetheless.
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Why has America been the world’s greatest country since populations exploded two centuries ago?
Our country invented true Democracy in the form of our Constitutional Republic, the greatest form of mass governance in history. Plus, we've sustained this historic treasure for 2â…“ centuries. It's been tested, a lot. No surprise then that we’ve made the most of our opportunities, avoiding national suicide because of Democracy’s tempering effect. It's also very attractive. Indeed, our Constitutional Republic has been the most popular destination for aspirational people from around the world for three centuries now.
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Power to the People. No Autocratic Usurpations — or plain old Democracy: However you declare it, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, George Mason and the trio of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay bequeathed the greatest gift to humanity since Moses handed down the Ten Commandments. How does their gift work?
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Decentralization of primary political power via Decentralization of Political Control. That’s how.
Private Property Rights
Extreme respect for private property rights spreads ownership interests far and wide, making it a fundamental Burkean Nation touchstone. Burke recognized and a tour through an owner-occupied neighborhood confirms that broadly distributed private property is a key mechanism for political stability.
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Don’t take my word for it or Edmund Burke’s either. Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru has done the most to articulate and advance the cause, winning the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty as a result. A true radical of the very best kind, he advocates mass distribution of property rights across where they don’t exist today.
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Bill Clinton called him “The world’s greatest living economist.”
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Ronald Reagan said “De Soto and his colleagues have examined the only ladder for upward mobility … the other path to development and the one true path. It is the people’s path … it leads somewhere. It works.”
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Does bipartisan praise get better than that?
Vouchers
The great, great, great Milton Friedman first articulated vouchers’ modern utility, a simple but seminal contribution to improving the welfare of modern civilization. His Nobel Prize came for other contributions, but vouchers may save civilization yet. Why?
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They are silver bullets that carry purchasing power – a form of property right – directly to people at the individual and family level. That mainlines distributed economic control right into the populace – where it’s needed most.
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The Left hates vouchers. HATES THEM!!! They bypass government’s monopoly on the distribution of services and therefore of public sector union jobs. Teacher Unions have a fatwa out against Education Vouchers. Pity poor students who desperately want them. Think they hate them? Think their parents hate them? Hell no. They’ll walk across a bed of hot coals to get ’em, as shown in Waiting for Superman.
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Healthcare Vouchers could deftly solve the uninsured problem in America, or at least go a long way to solving it. Because dCon is natural and not artificial like cCon, Healthcare Vouchers would naturally control costs, minimize fraud and put people more in control over their lives. But, Healthcare Vouchers would take power away from the IRS, HHS & CMS, making them kryptonite to the Democratic Party.
Summary of dCon Mechanisms
Democracy, Private Property Rights and Vouchers are the three mechanisms that naturally distribute control throughout a political economy. Societal success follows in their decentralizing wake.