Local, Action: Association

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and a French companion toured the 24 United States to investigate their jails in preparation for a reform of French prisons. What we got out of the deal was Democracy in America, a very comprehensive review of the state of the nation at that time, a glance at the country prior to the full onslaught of finance, managerial, and state capitalism (that and a kick-ass C-Span series). One of the more memorable themes of the book was the notion of Americans as association joiners:

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.

In America I encountered sorts of associations of which, I confess, I had no idea, and I often admired the infinite art with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal to the efforts of many men and to get them to advance to it freely.

This strikes me as the kind of society in which I would like to live. It is a society in which people form ad hoc associations to deal with problems as they arise, perhaps even creating new institutions for addressing the more serious institutional failures (I'm going to adopt Glen Whitman's semantics). That's a long way from the usual strawman offered as "what libertarians want", a strawman which is usually labeled "hyperindividualism" or "You're On Your Own".

Recently, I came across a Slate article critical of de Tocqueville written by Theda Skocpol. Actually, it's an article critical of people who look at that period as one free of what Skocpol might characterize as beneficial federal government influence. At first, I was intrigued since it seemed to support some of my suspicions, but upon reflection I decided that there were some problems with it.

First, she overlooks the reasons why government was involved in such things in the first place. Sure, the postal service and postal roads are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes...To establish Post Offices and post Roads"). However, it does not follow that because they could, they should. Nor does it follow that because you can plausibly argue that outcome X was the result of action Y that X was an actual and significant outcome of Y. Nor does it follow that Y was necessarily undertaken for X in the first place. Plausibility is not all.

With respect to the first of those objections, it should be pointed out that Thomas Jefferson argued (Virginia Protest, 1825) that federal road subsidies were an infringement of state sovereignty:

But the federal branch has assumed in some cases, and claimed in others, a right of enlarging its own powers by constructions, inferences, and indefinite deductions from those directly given, which this assembly does declare to be usurpations of the powers retained to the independent branches, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it.

They claim, for example, and have commenced the exercise of a right to construct roads, open canals, and effect other internal improvements within the territories and jurisdictions exclusively belonging to the several States, which this assembly does declare has not been given to that branch by the constitutional compact, but remains to each State among its domestic and unalienated powers, exercisable within itself and by its domestic authorities alone.

If the state is capable of such things, what reason is there for the federal government to do them? If the state does not desire them, by what theory does the federal government prove the inhabitants are wrong? Not democracy.

With respect to the second objection (still on the first problem, that of why the federal government was involved), that the subsidization of coaches, mails, and newspapers was neither the "non-zero-sum" game nor the Congressionally-directed system that Skocpol describes, I think this seems naive. As Kelly Olds argues, the postal system in place at the time was an extensive patronage system.

Giving out the postage revenues to groups with political power became the Post Office's second function. Measured monetarily, it was the Post Office's primary function. Thomas Jefferson, suspicious of the Post Office, had written:

I view [the Post Office] as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post-office revenues; but other revenues will soon be called in to their aid and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their states; and they will always get most who are meanest [Jefferson 1892-99: IX, 324-25].

The government resisted subsidizing the Post Office until the 1850s, partly out of fear of that which Jefferson prophesied.

The means by which the system was internally subsidized was that some routes were run at high profits and those were used to support the unprofitable routes. The activity was not directed by Congress, but a result of the way the USPS did business and therefore a benefit to the executive. The constituents favored by the system included coach companies and later railroads, newspapers (as Skocpol points out), representatives with franking privileges, rural voters, and the 1796-1804 Ezekiel Armstrong cycling teams. The reason for the patronage was not to bring general improvement to the country so that people like Alexis de Tocqueville would be amazed at the transportation and literacy in America; they were subsidized so that their purveyors could make money, privileges (jobs) could be handed out, and politicians could win votes. It was not so different then as now; the Halliburtons of that day had their Cheneys, too.

But given that mail, coaches, and newspapers were indirectly subsidized by the granted monopoly, does it follow that people were more informed or that travel was better as a result? More chartered mail coaches does not necessarily mean more or better passenger travel. More coaches who used shunpikes did not benefit turnpikes. More franked junk mail and speeches from congressmen does not mean a more informed populace (in fact, in an age devoid of alternative news sources, we could argue the opposite).

Olds also points out that the use of stamps and intra-city delivery were both originated by private mail companies and later copied by the USPS; for the favor, Congress forced many of them out of business during the 1839-1845 period in which the USPS was granted much of the extensive monopoly powers it protects today. To me those indicate that the system was overpriced and underserved compared to what it would have looked like in a competitive environment. If Congress really intended to increase rural travel and mails, those two things could be directly subsidized while the rest of the system ran privately and more efficiently. Today, I would argue that even the rural service is a red herring: a friend of mine once saw a UPS truck in Beaverhead, NM; you would be hard-pressed to find a place more rural.

The second problem with Skocpol's argument is that it overstates the magnitude of the federal government's involvement in the development of early roads, literacy, and associational tendencies. Skocpol's key claims are that the America De Tocqueville observed was largely the creation of a centralizing nation and the centralizing tendencies:

Social historian Richard D. Brown emphasizes that the Revolution, political struggles over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and deepening popular participation in national, state, and local elections served to spur associational life. So did religious and cultural ideals about self-improvement, and growing awareness of extralocal commercial and public affairs through widespread newspaper reading.
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In retrospect, it is obvious that what social historian Mary P. Ryan has dubbed the pre-Civil War "era of association," from the 1820s to the 1840s, coincided with the spread of adult male suffrage and the emergence of competitive, mass-mobilizing parties: first the Jacksonian Democrats, then the Whigs, and finally, the Free Soilers and the Republicans.

Daniel Klein has written extensively about private roads in America (see this collection). Of the three periods (the turnpike era, the plank road era, and the western road era), the first is the most relevant to the subject at hand. I am citing from "The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America."

Not counting the land grants involved, only four states subsidized roads, and of them only Pennsylvania did so substantially. The charters were means for getting private capital to take over the maintenance of the roads because the municipal governments could not afford it. Tolls were sufficient to keep the roads up, but not enough to make the roads extravagantly profitable. Nevertheless, participation in stock purchasing was surprisingly widespread.

In fact, it seems that many of the roads were the results of the actions of ad hoc societies. As Klein explains it,

The town meeting was a central institution in which all important residents were expected to participate. Sly ... says that in the early 1800s "[t]he town meeting was ... at the highest point of development." The turnpike meetings were well attended and stock pledges were made publicly. For example, Wood ... says the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike "was formally organized at a meeting held in the inn of Oliver Chapin, probably early in 1799, and sixteen hundred shares were issued with a par value of $100 each. Meetings with attendances of 50 and 100 people have been recorded [Connecticut Courant, March 19, 1798]....

Turnpike promoters relied of course on the most basic form of selective incentive, person-to-person solicitation. In an 1808 letter regarding the formation of the York and Conewago Canal Turnpike, the writer tells ..."

Further, putting to question the Skocpol's assertion that Jacksonian and Tocquevillian era newspapers were the result of mid-century federal investments in road building and post offices, Klein goes on to note newspaper campaigns conducted in 1798, 1804, and 1805. It appears that Skocpol had it backwards: voluntary associations and use of newspapers to convey information about private road companies pre-date the era she is citing as being a result of federal road-building and paper subsidization.

Rather than weakening de Tocqueville's observations, the existence of roads and the history of how they came to be financed reinforces them. Local townspeople noted the potential for the public benefits of a road (increased land value, incomes, access to cultural goods such as theatre, and buggy racing), so they formed organizations to obtain a state charter and raise funds. Despite or perhaps because of Virginia's objections, the federal involvement was extremely limited in those early years. Though the land grants and eminent domain provisions are troubling, this is much closer to the libertarian's understanding of how communal goods can be provided than the caricatures and strawmen normally offered.

A note on those land and eminent domain grants: the land granted was typically land already commonly used as a trail, path, or road. It probably had value for little else (that's why it was used for such). Granting it to a company for the purpose of improving it doesn't bother me much, especially when the company receiving the title is widely owned by the citizens who stand to benefit and who probably asked for the charter as townsman in the first place. The eminent domain powers were apparently not abused: they seem to have used them in conjunction with the voluntary fundraising efforts, i.e. persuasion and trade: "We'll give you stock in return for the title to this part of your land." That is a far cry from today, where a government merely announces they are going to take part of your land in exchange for a take-it-or-leave-it settlement, sometimes for the purpose of transferring it to someone who had the money to negotiate with you directly but didn't want to be bothered (and now that I think about it, I'd cut a break on the price of some land for the opportunity to not have to talk to Donald Trump). I think I'll have more to say on this in a future post on localism.

The Slate article also understates actual outcomes of the America described by de Tocqueville and tries to paint increasing centralization as either benign or beneficial. Mutual associations and the excludable goods associated with them, i.e. insurance benefits, are probably among the best-known examples (well, at least to me, an obviously biased sample). From Mancur Olson (The Logic of Collective Action), we would expect successful societies, i.e. the ones we have heard of, were able to provide something to the members (benefits, prestige, self esteem) that could be withheld from non-members. For this privilege, members would have had to contribute their money, time, and perhaps social capital. As David Beito shows in From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State, these societies continued to be vibrant and active until the government agencies took over the roles they served, i.e. the excludable goods lost their value.*

The penchant for association also worked into the managerial revolution described by Chandler (The Visible Hand). As they were beginning to recognize that rails and other businesses were no longer Mom & Pop operations carried on by partners and their sons, the various professional disciplines (managers, engineers, accountants, researchers) began to form professional associations. Among these, for example, were societies dedicated to promoting the ideas of Frederic Winslow Taylor with its rigidity and emphasis on central planning. These included the Efficiency, Scientism, and Technocracy movements, advocated the idea that all of man's problems could be solved "scientifically" by central planning and were taken seriously at the time both in the US and abroad. Lenin and Mussolini were fans, and many of the repealed provisions of the Second New Deal were an attempt to apply the theory.

Skocpol reads the period thusly:

In short, the early American civic vitality that so entranced Alexis de Tocqueville was closely tied up with the representative institutions and centrally directed activity of a very distinctive national state. The non-zero-sum nature of U.S. governmental and associational expansion becomes even more apparent when we consider that most of the big voluntary associations founded in the 19th century prospered well into the 20th, often building toward membership peaks reached only in the 1960s or 1970s and in full symbiosis with public social provision.

The Grand Army of the Republic spread in the wake of state and national benefits for Union veterans of the Civil War, for example. The Fraternal Order of Eagles was so active in promoting state and federal old-age pensions that the Grand Eagle himself received an official pen when FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935.

The same mutual aid societies that brought health insurance, unemployment insurance, and pensions went into decline as a result of Social Security and other federal programs. To characterize them (by their association with the FOE) as prospering (as I'm sure many other organizations did) is surely misleading; at best, it was not the "non-zero-sum nature of U.S. governmental and associational expansion" asserted. Though some of the mutual associations themselves bought into the idea of using "free" money from the government to extend benefits universally, support for social legislation was not without internal controversy. Again, Beito is the better guide to the inner workings of mutual aid and service organizations:

There is reason to believe that a relationship existed between the emerging welfare state and the decline of fraternal services. Most notably, the first signs of benefit retrenchment began after 1935, the year the Social security Act became law. Officials of the homes for the elderly and orphans of the SBA cited Social Security and other welfare programs as justification not only for rejecting applications but for closing down entirely. In 1939, Malcolm R. Giles, the supreme secretary and comptroller of the Loyal Order of the Moose, urged the council to consider restricting sick benefits to members under age 65. As justification he stressed that these individuals were eligible for aid under the Social Security Act. The same year Norman G. Heyd, the chairmen of the Moosehaven Board of Governors, reported that Moosehaven had the smallest population since 1931. He asserted that the major reason "for this decrease is undoubtedly the operation of the old-age pensions in most of the states.
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[M]any fraternalists still voiced opposition to the expanding welfare state, although they were far less influential than in the past.
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Bina West of the WBA also condemned New Deal programs. ... West ridiculed suggestions that Social Security was just an expanded form of cooperative insurance or represented a culmination of fraternal principles. She charged that the trust fund was not a true reserve but instead a mere "bookkeeping entry." The premiums used to finance the program, she asserted, could be used by the government for "any purpose, good or bad." [>coughLBJcoughVietnamcough<] As with compulsory health insurance, West worried that Social Security would pose a threat to American practices of mutual aid. "Is there any beautiful ritualism or human tenderness in a government bureau?" ... Even fraternal supporters of Social Security, such as Giles, shared these concerns. While Giles praised Social Security as proof that "imitation is the sincerest flattery," he cautioned that government was incapable of approximating the warm handclasp from a fellow member or the "friendly visitation of fraternalists to a stricken brother."

Side note: It is also worth pointing out that unemployment benefits, popularly thought to be a creation of Progressive or New Deal eras, were actually a mutual aid benefit long before, and were also offered by states prior to federal involvement. The federal government was a johnny-come-lately, not providing substantially higher benefits at all. Also, lest it be supposed that fraternalism died as a result of the Depression, it should be noted that many societies had bounced back from early hard times and by some measures fraternalism actually showed an increase during the 1930s, but a rapid decrease after 1940. Given the second rapid expansion of the federal government in Johnson's Great Society, it seems perhaps significant that Skocpol chooses to select that as the period at which the big voluntary associations reached their zenith, having declined ever since.

It seems worthwhile to mention also the labor movements that achieved success prior to the period of federal involvement. Union involvement as a percentage of the workforce peaked in the 1950s and as an absolute number peaked in about 1972. Some would argue that unionism has been in decline because of rather than in spite of the NLRA: the purpose of government involvement was not to support the workers but to support the employers who wanted a union that was interested in form, contract negotiation, and business, not workers' rights. This is indeed a symbiosis, but not of the type Skocpol implies.

Skocpol also never notes the rise of mutualism and syndicalism elsewhere in world as the 19th century progressed. I'm only a novice student in this area, so I'll leave the heavy lifting in this area to people like Kevin Carson, Zhwazi, Shawn Wilbur, Joel Schlosberg, Wally Conger, and Brad Spangler. In any case, there was certainly a growing reaction - Le Chatelier-like - to the rise of the nation-state. In America, the nation-state grew out of both the European model and the town hall meeting, giving rise to a reaction that was highly individualist, i.e. Emerson, Thoreau, Spooner, and others. In Europe, the reaction placed more emphasis on class consciousness, the influence of both the experience with feudalism, its remnants (the aristocracy in England, the Junkers and monarch in Prussia, the remaining monarchs in Austria and Russia), and Marx, giving a reaction that was highly communitarian (Owenism, Fourierism, syndicalism). These are hardly supportive of a "civic vitality" that desired to be "closely tied up with the representative institutions and centrally directed activity of a very distinctive national state." If anything, these are movements that are interested in civic vitality but resistant to centralism and long-distance bureaucracy.

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* Hmm, that's interesting. Is a good provided by a fraternal organization with wide membership a "communal good" even though it is excludable?