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Vol. 15 No. 2-3
FEDERALISM AND INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY
James M. Buchanan
转自宪政文本
I have been both surprised and disturbed by two sources of opposition
to efforts to move toward federalist structures in which political authority is
divided between levels of government. I refer, first, to the opposition in
Europe, mainly in Britain, to movements toward effective European federalism. Second,
I refer to the successful agitation that blocked the proposed Conference of the
States in the United States in 1995. What is disturbing about these sources of
opposition to the very idea of political federalism is that both emerge from
groups that are identified variously to be right-wing, conservative, or
libertarian. We should not, of course, be surprised at all by
socialist-inspired opposition to the federalist idea and ideal. Socialists have
been and remain forthright in their desire to extend the range of politicized
control over the lives and liberties of persons. But why should conservatives,
classical liberals, or libertarians join socialists in opposing structural
reforms that embody federalist principles?
I suggest that a coherent classical liberal must be generally
supportive of federal political structures, because any division of authority
must, necessarily, tend to limit the potential range of political coercion. Those
persons and groups who oppose the devolution of authority from the central
government to the states in the United States and those who oppose any limits
on the separate single nation-states in modern Europe are, by these
commitments, placing other values above those of the liberty and sovereignty of
individuals.
The incoherence in values that such anti-federalist ambivalence
reflects is not widely acknowledged. The relationships between federalist
political structure and the sovereignty of the individual must be carefully
examined, particularly in terms of the implications for current discussions in
Europe, Mexico, and the United States.
In this paper, I shall summarize the theory of competitive federalism
and examine the relation between the engagement-participation of the individual
in politics and the size of the political unit. The theory of competitive
federalism emphasizes the prospects for exit, both internal and external, as
constraints on political control over the individual. In contrast, the theory
of what we might call "partitioned sovereignty federalism'' emphasizes the
prospects for the exercise of voice in limiting political excesses.
In addition, I shall introduce moral elements that may emerge in
arguments for federal political structures and relate those arguments to
observed crises in modern welfare states. Finally, I shall apply the analysis
more directly to discussions of movements toward federalist structures in
several parts of the world.
The Theory of Competitive Federalism
The normative theory of competitive federalism is congenial to
economists in particular, because it is simply the extension of the principles
of the market economy to the organization of the political structure. The
market economy produces high levels of value from which all participants
benefit; persons are legally guaranteed rights of entry into and exit from
production and exchange relationships one with another. If a good or service
offered by a producer-seller is "bad'' compared with goods offered by other
producer-sellers, the prospective purchaser-consumer simply exercises the exit
option and shifts his or her business to an alternative supplier. And the facts
that profits are promised by marketing "good goods'' rather than "bad
goods'' ensures that scarce resources will flow toward those uses that yield
relatively high values. Suppliers remain always in competition among
themselves, faced with the knowledge that demanders have available the
continuing prospect of exiting from any ongoing economic relationship.
Normatively, the political structure should complement the market in
the sense that the objective for its operation is the generation of results
that are valued by citizens. By its nature, however, politics is coercive; all
members of a political unit must be subjected to the same decisions. The
prospect of exit, which is so important in imposing discipline in market
relationships, is absent from politics unless it is deliberately built in by
the constitution of a federalized structure.
Consider a large economy, characterized by liberty of resource flows
and trade throughout the territory--liberty that is enforced by a political
unit, a government, that is coincident in extent with the effective size of the
market. If politics could be restricted to the exercise of these minimal or
protective state functions (the night watchman state), little or no concern
need be expressed about coercive political intrusions on the liberties of
citizens. As the experience of this century surely demonstrates, however,
politics is almost certain to extend beyond any such limits. (We need not argue
here about whether or not and to what extent expansions in the domain of
politics are justifiable.) The problem becomes one of organizing the
beyond-minimal politics of the "productive'' and the "transfer''
state so as to minimize the potential for political coercion or, stated
conversely, to maximize the protected sphere of individual sovereignty.
It is here that the prospects for organizing the polity in accordance
with federalist principles become exceedingly attractive. Federalism offers a
means of introducing essential features of the market into politics. Consider,
for example, a setting in which the central or federal government is
constitutionally restricted to the exercise of minimal or protective state
functions, while all other functions are carried out by separated state or
provincial units. The availability of the exit option, guaranteed by the
central government, would effectively place limits on the ability of
state-provincial governments to exploit citizens, quite independently of how
political choices within these units might be made. Localized politicians and
coalitions would be unable to depart significantly from overall efficiency
standards in their taxing, spending, and regulatory politics. And note that the
feedback effect of potential exit need exert itself only on a relatively small
share of economic decision takers. Even those citizens who might never consider
migration in some Tiebout-like regime would be protected by the acknowledged
existence of those few citizens who might be marginally sensitive to
differential political treatment. Federalism serves the dual purposes of
allowing the range or scope for central government activity to be curtailed and,
at the same time, limiting the potential for citizen exploitation by
state-provincial units.
Partitioned Sovereignty Federalism: The Exercise of Voice
The efficacy of competitive federalism depends directly on the
operative strength of the exit option. The ability of persons to migrate and to
shift investment and trade across boundaries serves to limit political
exploitation. Recall, however, that in his seminal work, Albert Hirschman
(1970) placed "voice'' alongside "exit'' in his examination of control
institutions. In the market, exit is the dominant means through which persons
indirectly exercise control, and, as indicated earlier, federalism incorporates
this means into politics. But the exercise of voice is also important,
especially perhaps in politics, and this feature lends independent support for
federal structures.
The basic logic is straightforward. If the concern is for the
protection and maintenance of individual sovereignty against the potential
coercion that may be imposed by political or collective action, the size of the
political unit, measured by the number of members, becomes a relevant variable,
quite apart from the presence or absence of an exit opportunity. And political
authority may be deliberately shared between a central government and component
units, with effective sovereignty partitioned among levels.[1]
Consider, again, a large economy in which a central government,
coincident in size with the economy, is limited to the carrying out of
protective or minimal state functions. How should the extensions of political
activity beyond these limits be organized? How should the public-goods and
welfare state activities be structurally designed?
Even if citizens are predicted to remain locationally fixed, and hence
within a single jurisdiction, so that exit is not a potentially effective means
of institutional control at all, there remains a strong normative argument to
be made for establishing relatively small, and coexisting, political units, all
of which may be geographically contained within the boundaries of the economic
interaction and the territorial reach of the central government. If persons
are, for any reason, either unable or unwilling to exercise the exit option,
actually or potentially, they may be able to exercise voice, defined here as
activity that is participatory in determining political choices. And voice is
more effective in small than in large political units. One vote is more likely
to be decisive in an electorate of 100 than in an electorate of 1,000 or 1
million. Also, it is easier for one person or small group to organize a
potentially winning political coalition in the localized community than in a
large and complex polity.
But voice is more than a vote in some precise mathematical formula for
measuring potential influence over political outcomes. Neither the set of
alternatives among which political choices are made nor the preferences of
citizens-voters are exogenous to the processes of political discussion. And it
is self-evident that the influence of any person in a discussion process varies
inversely with the size of the group.
Even if exit is nonexistent in reality, what we may label as
"virtual exit'' may be important and relevant in the internal
discussion-choice process. The mere fact that coexisting units of government
exist and can be observed to do things differently exerts spillover effects on
internal political actions. As a practical example, even though exit was of
some importance, especially in Germany, the observations of Western economies,
culture, and politics by citizens of Central and Eastern Europe were
independently critical in effecting the genuine political revolutions that
occurred in 1989-91. As an additional conceptual experiment, think about how
much less vulnerable the communist regimes would have been if all of Europe had
been under communist domination. Or imagine how prospects for the revolution
might have fared in a world without television.
Note that the normative arguments for federalizing political authority
made so far have not considered the relative economic efficiency of public
goods delivery by the different levels of government. Those arguments suggest
that, even if productive-welfare state functions could, in some ideal sense, be
best carried out by the central government, there are offsetting grounds, based
on what we may call "political efficiency,'' for partitioning political
choice (see Brennan and Buchanan 1980: Chap. 9).
Homogeneity, Moral Capacity, and Federalization
The effects of community size on the individual's protection against
political exploitation discussed so far are independent of any consideration of
the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the constituent members of the separated
state or provincial units. Even if the inclusive polity is made up of similar
persons, there remains a normative argument for partitioning effective
political sovereignty between central and state-provincial units of governance.
If, however, we now introduce prospects for heterogeneity in the inclusive
constituency, the argument for federalization is surely strengthened. Small
units, defined geographically or territorially, are likely to be more
homogeneous in makeup than larger units, and the individual is more likely to
share preferences for political action with his or her peers than would be the
case where political interaction must include persons who are considered to be
"foreign,'' whether the lines here be drawn racially, ethnically,
religiously, economically, or otherwise. If the end objective is the minimization
of politically orchestrated coercion, the individual will, personally, feel
under less potential threat in a community of similarly situated peers than in
a large community that embodies groups with differing characteristics.
Quite apart from the objectively identifiable characteristics that
might allow an outside observer to classify persons into groups, the size of
the community also becomes relevant in its direct relationship to the moral
capacity of the individual to share values with others. That is to say,
homogeneity in values among persons may itself be related to social and
locational distance. And those values may include community bonding, which may
be expressed in terms of utility interdependence. A person may feel genuine
empathy for other persons whom he or she classifies, internally, as members of
his or her moral community, the boundaries of which are determined, in part, by
numbers and by proximity. For example, I may share a common concern for the
plight of persons who are citizens of Montgomery County, Virginia, or, more
inclusively, for the plight of the citizens of Virginia, a concern that is
either absent or much attenuated with reference to the citizens of Kern County,
California, or of California itself.
In a paper that I presented at the American Economic Association
meetings several years ago (Buchanan 1978), I argued that each of us has only a
limited moral capacity. It is surely easier and more natural to feel sympathy
for and care about others who are members of the same small community than it
is to care for members of a large polity. I suggested, further, that a major
factor in generating the breakdown of the welfare state was the shift of
transfer activities to the central government and away from local communities
in which political action might well embody a greater sense of interdependence.
I suggested that the shift of political activities that must incorporate moral
elements to levels of interaction that extend well beyond our moral capacities
can only serve to exacerbate the emergence of raw self-seeking by groups of
potential clients on the one hand and by those who feel unduly exploited on the
other.
The argument here is, of course, related closely to F. A. Hayek's
emphasis on our genetic heritage, which is basically tribal, and leads us to
classify other persons into two groups--"us'' and "them,'' or
"neighbors'' and "strangers.'' Hayek (1979) perceptively noted that
only as these genetic dispositions came to be transcended by the culturally
evolved norms for generalized reciprocity in interactions did the "great
society,'' defined by the extended market order, become possible. We must
recognize, however, that politicization, in itself, explicitly encourages the
reemergence of tribal identities. Political action, regardless of how decisions
are made, involves choices that are made for, and coercively imposed on, all
members of the relevant political community. Anyone who is a participant is,
almost by necessity, required to classify his or her own interests in
juxtaposition against the imagined interests of others in the polity. Federalized
structures allow for some partial mapping of politics with tribal identities. At
the very least, federalized structures reduce the extent to which tribal identities
in politics must be grossly transcended. This consideration assumes relatively
more importance if and as the moral linkages are locational, rather than
strictly genetic.
Federalism as an Ideal Polity and Federalism in Reality
It is relatively easy to describe the ideal structure of politics for a
large community, defined by territory or by numbers of citizens, if the
overriding objective is the protection of individual sovereignty against
political coercion.[2] A central government authority should be
constitutionally restricted to the enforcement of openness of the whole nexus
of economic interaction. Within this scope, the central authority must be
strong, but it should not be allowed to extend beyond the limits
constitutionally defined. Other political-collective activities should be
carried out, if at all, by separate state-provincial units that exist
side-by-side, as competitors of sorts, in the inclusive polity.
This definition of the idealized federalism is useful only because it
offers a concrete objective toward which reforms in political arrangements may
be directed. In reality, no existing political structure comes close to the
ideal. Any constructive effort must therefore commence with an understanding of
and appreciation for the politics that is observed to exist. "We start
from here and now.'' This elementary fact should always be prefatory to any
discussion of reform.
With reference to the common federalist ideal, however, we may observe
categorically different starting places. The situation may be represented by
the spectrum in Figure 1, in which a federal political structure stands halfway
between a regime of fully autonomous states on the one hand and a monolithic,
all-powerful central authority on the other.
Individual protection against political exploitation is increased as we
move toward the center of the spectrum from starting points either left or
right of center. In 1787, James Madison sought to increase the authority of the
central government; he located the status quo under the Articles of
Confederation somewhere to the left of center in Figure 1. He sought to
increase the authority of the federal government as a means of placing limits
on the authority of the separate states. We know now that United States history
has destroyed Madison's vision. As a result of the destructive Civil War in the
1860s, secession was permanently eliminated as an effective
extra-constitutional check on the progressive increase in central government
authority. And, in the 20th century, constitutional guarantees against federal
encroachment on the authority of states were undermined by executive,
legislative, and judicial departures from established principles. At the
century's end, therefore, the status quo is clearly on the right side of the
spectrum in Figure 1. Effective reform must embody devolution of power from the
central government to the states--change that is in the opposite direction from
what Madison accomplished in 1787.
Figure 1.
In Mexico, the situation is similar with respect to the direction of
change, despite the categorically different history of the country. Reform in
the direction of securing effective federalism must incorporate a devolution of
authority toward the states and away from the central government.
In Europe, however, matters are quite different. There the status quo
exhibits some features that are analogous to those assessed by Madison in 1787.
The opportunity has existed, and still exists, to organize European politics so
as to put in place a genuine federal structure with many elements of the ideal
set out earlier. The Europe-wide economy has been substantially integrated,
with historically unprecedented liberties of resource flows and trade across
traditional national boundaries. Reform requires the establishment of a strong
but limited central authority, empowered to enforce the openness of the
economy, along with the other minimal state functions. In this way, and only in
this way, can the vulnerability of the individual European to exploitation by
national political units be reduced. At the same time, however, the extension
of the central authority's powers beyond such minimal limits must be rigidly
opposed. The separated nation-states, as members of the federal union, must
zealously protect the whole range of subminimal political activities.
Opposition to the federalist idea, especially as expressed in arguments
by some U.K. political leaders, stems from an imagined fear of a monolithic
central authority in Brussels--a fear that has been fueled, in part, by the
residual vestiges of the socialist mentality among some influential nominal
supporters of the federal structure. Both attitudes fail to understand that
federalism and socialism are contradictory systems of political order. Federalism
is a means of reducing political power overall and of dividing the power that
exists. Socialism is opposed on both counts.
The opposition to federalism that comes from those who otherwise seem
sympathetic to classical liberalism apparently reflects a failure to understand
that federalism offers protection against the excesses of the autonomous
nation-state. Or could it be that the genuine objective of those who oppose
reforms toward federalism is not individual liberty, but rather the
preservation of national political sovereignty? It is as if the U.K.
anti-federalists are saying, "We do not mind being politically coerced, so
long as it is done by the British Parliament.''
The position of those zealots in the United States who successfully
thwarted the organization of the Conference of the States in 1995 is even more
bizarre and surely borders on paranoia. The initiative behind the Conference
was aimed almost exclusively toward designing ways and means through which
effective political authority could be devolved from the federal government to
the separate states. How could those persons and groups who mouth slogans about
liberty and oppose such initiatives be other than dishonest or ignorant?
Postscript: Individual Sovereignty and
Individual Liberty
Note that my title is "Federalism and Individual Sovereignty''
rather than "Federalism and Individual Liberty.'' It may be useful to
clarify the distinction. What is the ultimate maximand when the individual
considers the organization of the political structure? Unless he or she is a
genuine anarchist who thinks that private and voluntary action can be
efficacious over the whole social space (including basic protections to person,
property, and contract), this maximand cannot be summarized as the maximization
of (equal) individual liberty from political-collective action. Implementation
of such an objective would, to many of us, represent a leap backward into the
Hobbesian jungle.
A more meaningful maximand is summarized as the maximization of (equal)
individual sovereignty. This objective allows for the establishment of
political-collective institutions, but implies that these institutions be
organized so as to minimize political coercion of the individual. Coercion is
defined as being required to do things or to submit to things others do to you,
that you do not, or would not, voluntarily agree to do yourself or to have done
to you. A person may give up his or her liberty to steal from others and pay
taxes to support the enforcement of laws against theft provided others are
subjected to the same general constraints. So long as one's agreement to such
political action is voluntary, the individual's sovereignty is protected, even
though liberty is restricted (see Buchanan and Lomasky 1984).
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References
Brennan, G., and Buchanan, J.M. (1980) The Power to Tax: Analytical
Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buchanan, J.M. (1978) "Markets, States, and the Extent of
Morals.'' American Economic Review 68 (May): 364-68.
Buchanan, J.M. (1995) "Federalism as an Ideal Political Order and
an Objective for Constitutional Reform.'' Publius: The Journal of Federalism
25(2): 1-9.
Buchanan, J.M., and Lomasky, L. (1984) "The Matrix of
Contractarian Justice.'' Social Philosophy 2 (Autumn): 12-32.
Hayek, F.A. (1979) The Political Order of a Free People. Vol. 3 of Law,
Legislation, and Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hirschman, A.E. (1970) Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press.
Tiebout, C.M. (1956) "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.'' Journal
of Political Economy 60 (October): 416-24.
Vaubel, R. (1995) The Centralisation of Western Europe. Hobart Paper
No. 127. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
Cato Journal, Vol. 15, Nos. 2-3 (Fall/Winter 1995/96). Copyright ©
Cato Institute. All rights reserved.
James M. Buchanan is the Harris University Professor
and Advisory General Director of the Center for Study of Public Choice at
George Mason University. This paper is based on a presentation made at the Mont
Pelerin Society's regional meeting in Cancun, Mexico, January 15, 1996.
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Notes
[1] Roland Vaubel (1995) makes several of the same
points that I emphasize here. Notably, Vaubel also used the "exit'' and
"voice'' metaphors in the federalist context.
[2] The discussion in this section closely parallels
that in Buchanan (1995).