Decentralist League of Vermont, RIP

I used to be happy to learn Greg Guma’s account of the Decentralist League of Vermont. It was an impressed however ephemeral effort, as Greg says, “to take intention at centralized energy and wealth, the League asserted that decentralizing each, the place and every time potential, is one of the simplest ways to protect range, improve self-sufficiency, and fulfill human wants.” I’d add, “defend particular person liberty and a free society.”

At present, 46 years later, I think Greg and I nonetheless have so much in frequent in our vital views of the modern political scene.

My solely objection was Greg’s gratuitous comment that “Though it lasted just a few years — a casualty of Reagan-era polarization…”.   The League had dissolved effectively earlier than Reagan ran for president in 1980.

In spite of everything, Reagan himself had mentioned to the Financial Membership of Chicago in 1975 that “I’m calling for an finish to giantism, for a return to the human scale — the size that human beings can perceive and deal with: the size of the native fraternal lodge, the church congregation, the block membership, the farm bureau. It’s the regionally owned manufacturing unit, the small businessman who personally offers along with his prospects and stands behind his product, the farm and client cooperative, the city or neighborhood financial institution that invests locally, the union native. 

“In authorities, the human scale is the city council, the board of selectmen, and the precinct captain. It’s this exercise on a small, human scale that creates the material of neighborhood, a framework for the creation of abundance and liberty. The human scale nurtures requirements of proper

habits, a prevailing ethic of what’s proper and what’s fallacious, acceptable and unacceptable.”

It’s nonetheless a matter of sorrow for me that the Reagan administration was so little in tune with Reagan’s personal core beliefs on this topic.

John McClaughry

Kirby