"Communities can solve their own problems. Hunger. Disparities. Access to clean drinking water. Youth substance abuse. You name it.
We are reminded of the innovation of the human spirit and the power of people working together to bring about community change over and over again. Most recently, by the response to a recent Out of the Box Prize contest hosted by the Community Tool Box at the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. 309 communities submitted inspiring stories of change from 42 different countries around the world – from the Americas to Zambia.
An international panel of judges selected ten finalists whose meaningful work ranged from an effort in India to prevent birth defects and disabilities by discouraging child marriage, delaying conception of the first child and promoting breast feeding, to a neighborhood project to foster citizen activism, to an effort to provide sanitary napkins to girls in Kenya who would otherwise stay home from school when menstruating.
Learning from these innovations reminds us of the power inherent to each community to solve its own problems. And, for tips, tools, and inspiration, people from around the world can learn from one another by viewing each other’s ideas stories of change online."
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The discourse around local knowledge, decentralized decision making, and emergent order is really troubling for me sometimes. Progressives who recognize the importance of things like community organizing, collective action, grass-roots initiatives in developing countries, etc. don't exactly oppose - but they don't get excited about market order. Libertarians will embrace market order, but be suspicious about self-government. They say they aren't but it's hard even to find small-scale community level governance that they are enthusiastic about. Local public schools and fire stations have come under fire recently - where is the self-governance that's actually embraced? Why is there such widespread hesitance to embrace emergent order in human society?
One of the nice things about the recent events in Egypt is that we seem to have found a common ground of sorts. They're not us, so were not arguing about whether the Tea Party or the Obama campaign is really "spontaneous order" or not. We can all look at them and say "This is spontaneous order. It is designed and organized, but in an emergent way. This is self-governance evolving before our eyes. It may go right, or it may go wrong - but it's a response to something that we all agree was not spontaneous order".
I wish our discussions about these issues were more comprehensive and less contentious on a more normal basis. Localist movements, Hayekian economics, democratic philosophy, federalism, community organizing, the market, experimental grasping towards collective action on macroeconomic policy, scientific advancement, etc. can all coexist in the same framework of spontaneous social order. I just think a lot of work on these issues obscures more than it enlightens.
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I assume that when you say 'Libertarians' you mean naive Libertarians. There are plenty of them, and they do throw out the baby with the bath water - all to eager to give up the benefits of coordination for the benefits of unfettered freedom. But they aren't the only Libertarians.
ReplyDeleteYes - "naive" for libertarians and progressives in the above.
ReplyDeleteAlthough perhaps its fair to say that they're all "suspicious" of self-government? Maybe? That doesn't imply outright opposition after all.
Regardless - "naive" it is.
I don't think I'd phrase it as a contrast between coordination and freedom. It's a contrast between two different sorts of freedoms and two different sorts of coercions.