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John Carter's avatar

This aligns with the concept of subsidiarity: solving problems at the level at which they occur. The problem of administrative tyranny occurs when large, distant governments ruling over vast numbers of people in a wide array of geographical and cultural contexts attempt to gather to themselves all regulatory and decision-making power. They attempt to solve small problems with big solutions, and only create bigger problems. If instead society were organized such that decision making was pushed down to the level at which problems exist - or, to put it another way, each level were limited to the problems specific to that level - there would be no conflict between governance on a large geographical scale and individual liberty. A key problem facing us is that this principle is diametrically opposed to the impulse of the managerial class, whose entire raison d'etre is telling people what to do.

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JJHW's avatar

You didn't catch your lapsus linguae this time, numner rather than number. There is one more way that a monarch is better than an administrative government in that to change course one only need remove one man not entire classes of people, which is much more resource intensive. BTW in England we have postmen, or posties in the vernacular , not mailmen.

You are making an assumption here, that it is the job of government to organise people rather than protect their rights so they can go about their business. That is a socialist rather than more libertarian conception and one I am at odds with. We did have greater decentralisation in England, in the form of Local Councils, however many of the powers that were local have now been centralised, as is the want of those at the top, who set themselves against everyone else. You have reminded me of Carl's talk about the Universal Human -

https://www.lotuseaters.com/video-the-universal-human-05-10-21

Personally I would rather build than conquer, but then I'm an outlier.

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