[narak]

I suspect the most practical way to reform our institutions is through increased competition in governance, just like we "fix" stagnant institutions in the private sector. We already have this baked into our constitution: States rights and their ability to pass amendments. There's a movement happening around this. [0]

Justice Brandeis said it best: "state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." [1]

Imagine if States could try different healthcare systems, or basic income, etc. Citizens would be able to vote with their feet and move to the best systems. This should be a bipartisan movement.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendmen...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratories_of_democracy

[apozem]

This is a nice thought that does not grapple with the reality of modern-day politics.

The Republican Party is hellbent on holding onto power by any means necessary. They will oppose any structural reforms that could reduce their power. Would they allow a system such as you propose, that allows California greater independence? Of course not.

Look how they oppose vote by mail [1], in the middle of a pandemic. Madness, until you realize they believe vote-by-mail will advantage Democrats. This is not a party that is interested in pro-democracy experiments, only changing the rules to keep themselves in power.

> There is no part of the Republican Party — not its president in the White House, not its leadership in Congress, not its conservative allies on the Supreme Court, not its interest groups or its affiliated media — that has an interest in or commitment to a fair, equal and expansive democracy...

> Republican lawmakers nationwide have taken every opportunity to restrict voting and entrench themselves against voters who might want an alternative. They’ve passed strict photo ID requirements, implemented mass voter purges, put new restrictions on registering voters, closed polling sites and ended extended voting periods. With few exceptions — Utah introduced vote by mail in 2013 — a state with a Republican executive and a Republican Legislature is a state that will restrict voting long before it tries to make it easier and more accessible. [2]

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/republicans-v...

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/sunday/wisconsin-...

[Barrin92]

Localism is rarely the answer. The housing crisis is the primary example of this. The US has one endemic problem, which is local interests successfully lobbying federal government and putting the interests of the few ahead of the interests of society at large.

It's local homeowner associations, the tendency to litigate everything, the inability for large actors like government or business to purchase and develop land. The one person who symbolizes the reason why modern America can't build for me is Erin Brockovich. A person without any formal training in the legal field suing an entire project into the ground, although as it turns out there's actually no scientific evidence for any of the claims, yet she's celebrated as the little guy who stuck it to the man.

Devolving power to the states may only weaken the federal government whose resources and knowledge are needed to provide large scale infrastructure. The deficit here isn't in the billions, its in the trillions.

I'm not in principal opposed to experimenting with local democracy or whatever but it needs to happen on the back of a federal government with sufficient capacity and competence and power to act quickly.

For the "states as laboratories" thing to work you actually need a mechanism to ensure that the things that work actually get adopted. I don't see this happening in the US. There's way too many inmates running their own asylums.

[nickff]

Perhaps the interstate highway system is a federal issue, but a metro subway or bus system isn't. Seattle's mass transportation system has no impact on Miami's; I doubt either has an impact on Portland's.

What resources and knowledge does the federal government have that the states don't? If the federal government has such knowledge, it should probably publish the papers, so that state and municipal experts can determine how to apply it to their region.

If the federal government lowers taxes, the states can raise theirs, and accomplish whatever objectives they need to. It's a many-billion dollar state issue in many states, which looks like a trillion dollar federal issue when you add up all the states, but there doesn't seem to be any economy of scale which makes the federal government better suited to solving the issue than any given state.

[wahern]

> What resources and knowledge does the federal government have that the states don't?

The problem is democracy. Local governments are more democratic in the sense of being directly responsive to community interests, especially since the 1960s-era reforms. But more democracy is not always better, especially when the community makes contradictory demands. Often you end up trading away administrative efficiency.

So what does the federal government have to offer? A dispassionate, distant, and non-responsive administrative apparatus. At least in the current political context. Whether it could be effectively utilized is another question as there are also other pathologies at play, such as ideological sentiments that the federal government shouldn't be involved, period.

[avmich]

"More democracy is not always better" is an interesting statement. I'd agree that democracy can be inefficient, but in a relatively small community contradictory demands supported by roughly equal numbers of participants is a textbook case of democracy working - you don't change things if half doesn't want it.

That federal government shouldn't be involved is also not only ideological sentiment. Current opinion is that smaller problems are better visible closely, and can be solved locally - as they are smaller - and levels of bureaucracy add significant friction.

There is a position that good democracies are local ones. Some have to delegate for common problems to higher levels, but more remote levels become less democratic - as they are more detached from people. There are counterarguments, some of them are countered in a vague "good" prefix.

[suby]

People probably aren't going to renounce their US citizenship due to higher taxes, but they will move states if taxes in one are significantly lower. This is one of the problems with trying to implement something like universal healthcare on a state by state basis, you need to increase your revenue in order to do so, and the people you most need to tax (the rich) are also the most able to jump ship.

I'd love it if someone could point out if I'm wrong here.

[nickff]

Not everybody moves to the lowest-tax states. There are plenty of people in New York and California, despite the lower taxes in Florida and Texas. People balance costs and benefits, and effective mass transit is definitely an advantage.

[Tyrek]

Can't publish employee quality/motivation. By nature of the game, the Federal level generally has more quality expertise available to it,(larger talent pool, more prestige) more funding to explore different issues, and the ability to focus that funding on limited areas of focus.

These are levers generally unavailable at the lower levels of govt, especially not for the smaller states.

[xxpor]

>Seattle's mass transportation system has no impact on Miami's

This is only true if you look at it in the absolute shallowest way. Seattle's increased output due to its subway system helps the entire country.

95% (to pull a number out of my rear end) of the use of interstates in a city are for private vehicles belonging to city residents. I-5 in Seattle doesn't "help" Miami either.

[bhupy]

You can apply this thinking to the entire world, then. We ought to all be a part of one global country, and London's increased output helps us all!

If only cooperation and decision-making were so simple.

[Brendinooo]

>95%...of the use of interstates in a city are for private vehicles belonging to city residents

This is probably nowhere close to true. People living in cities have less reason to use it. Interstates near and through cities benefit the broader region economically through commuters.

But the bulk of the miles of the interstate system are the boring stretches through Wyoming or wherever, and those stretches tie the nation together economically. Half of all big truck miles are on the Interstate, according to some totally random website I found.

[carapace]

> Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium in a cooling tower system to fight corrosion. The waste water was discharged to unlined ponds at the site, and some percolated into the groundwater, affecting an area near the plant approximately 2 by 1 mile (3.2 by 1.6 km).

~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich

Are you trolling?

Erin Brockovich isn't the problem. Dumping waste is the problem.

That kind of "building" just isn't helpful.

[toasterlovin]

> Localism is rarely the answer. The housing crisis is the primary example of this.

I think you could argue that the housing crisis is caused in large part by the fact that states cannot limit immigration from other states. Which would suggest that, perhaps, localism would be a solution to the housing crisis.

[Barrin92]

How is restricting freedom of movement within the United States, greatly harming individual rights and damaging the economy of the country a solution to the housing crisis? You've found the one thing that's actually worse than the status quo

[bhupy]

This is exactly how Switzerland operates, and it appears to be working rather well for them.

It also helps to think of the United States as more akin to the European Union, rather than any of its individual member states. This is purely conjecture, but an EU that is as centrally powerful as the US would likely be equally disastrous.

[freehunter]

And that’s part of the problem, a loose confederation of states with a weak central government morphed over the past 200 years into a president who has such unbelievable powers and a federal government who claims total authority over the states. It wasn’t meant to be like that.

[bhupy]

Right, the systems of government of the United States are nearly identical to those of the European Union[1] (especially so prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment), and we constantly try to compare the Union to individual unitary states like Denmark or France or Singapore.

Trying to shove an EU-shaped peg into a France-sized hole is probably not worth the effort.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lj127TKu4Q

[justin66]

> Imagine if States could try different healthcare systems, or basic income, etc. Citizens would be able to vote with their feet and move to the best systems. This should be a bipartisan movement.

Health care and basic income are... interesting... examples of what you're talking about. Government should certainly take better care of people at the bottom of the income ladder who need health care or money but if people who need that stuff "vote with their feet" and move to a few states that experiment with providing that stuff, the result might not be very positive for those states.

There's already an economic race to the bottom dynamic among states in a lot of ways. Delegating things the federal government should provide for everyone to the states is going to make that a lot worse.

[bhupy]

> There's already an economic race to the bottom dynamic among states in a lot of ways. Delegating things the federal government should provide for everyone to the states is going to make that a lot worse.

Switzerland seems to be doing just fine, though.

[justin66]

Is it? I honestly have no idea.

Their system of government (and everything else) is radically different than ours in some pretty major respects that aren't going to change without us throwing out the constitution. Some of them are relevant to the post you replied to, for example how they handle taxation and citizenship.

[bhupy]

Yes, in Switzerland nearly _everything_ is left to its states (Cantons). The Federal government is responsible for the army, currency, immigration/asylum, foreign relations, and customs. Everything else is the responsibility of the Cantons [1].

The net result is an "economic race to the bottom" that has now resulted in one of the lowest income taxes in the developed world, coupled with one of the highest standards of living.

The Swiss government is largely influenced by 19th century American federalism.

In fact, even naturalization is a Cantonal responsibility:

"The State Secretariat for Migration examines whether applicants are integrated in the Swiss way of life, are familiar with Swiss customs and traditions, comply with the Swiss rule of law, and do not endanger Switzerland's internal or external security.

The State Secretariat for Migration will then “green light” an applicant’s request to begin the naturalisation process but that does not mean citizenship is certain. Rather, cantons and municipalities have their own requirements that must be met."[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland#Constit...

[2] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a-citizen/29288376

[wahern]

Francis Fukuyama recently wrote an opinion piece where he argues that the dividing characteristic today between successful and broken states is trust in government, not the structure of government.

Singapore is authoritarian-democratic, Switzerland hyper federalist, but both exhibit a political culture that voluntarily provides liberal permissions to the relevant government institutions. In the United States (nationally, and in most states) and many European countries, such a culture has long since eroded from its mid-20th century apex.

[bhupy]

I'd argue that in a lot of US States, the distrust is not in all government, just in the central Federal government. Consider that every State in the Union has taxpayer subsidized State university system, state police systems, fire departments, public libraries, etc.

Maybe an optimal equilibrium is one where Vermont can be authoritarian-democratic and Texas can by hyper federalist. Singapore and Switzerland seem to work because they are small polities and everyone is on the same page.

In Switzerland's hyper confederation, everyone seems to be on the same page: that nobody is on the same page :).

[justin66]

I would have thought that a race for the bottom, which is a real concept that you don't have to put in scare quotes, among the Cantons could be arrested by the citizenship and registration requirements each Canton has. For example, if too many poor are moving in to use the Canton's services, which their own Cantons refuse to provide, simply don't allow them to register.

This kind of race for the bottom in Switzerland is admittedly a rather fantastical idea, but for cultural reasons, not organizational ones, I think. Though the organizational differences are certainly big!

[bhupy]

From an organizational perspective, the United States is uniquely well setup to emulate this model. There's no need for systemic changes or amendments to the US Constitution.

The cultural challenge is to convince most Americans of this fact, and get them to embrace subsidiarity[1], as a principle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

[Goronmon]

Citizens would be able to vote with their feet and move to the best systems.

This sounds great for the wealthy and those who don't have trivial issues like jobs or family tying them to one location. Sounds terrible for everyone else though.

[_2d30]

It turns out jobs happen to exist in cities throughout the country. Almost all of them in fact. Families are also able to move as a unit if so desired. Otherwise, there's always travel back to them or the use of widely available free services for keeping in touch.

Moving is not particularly expensive and if in so doing, as under this proposed scenario of moving to places with better QoL or economies, could in fact be a net positive financially for the individual/family moving (ie an investment).

It should also be noted that this already happens today and not so much so be the wealthy for whom moving actually is much less important. Take a look at net migration stats throughout the country: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/geographic-mobi...

This idea that "only the wealthy" (how is this even defined??) have the autonomy to do anything is so played out in today's political discussions. It's a trope used without thought to the idea being proposed. No consideration given except that something might cost money and is therefore only doable by some abstract group of wealthy people.

[throw149102]

Let me start with the end.

> This idea that "only the wealthy" (how is this even defined??)

I don't know how OP defines "wealthy", but I define wealthy to start around 3 to 10 million dollars. This is due to the Trinity Study[1], which showed that withdrawing 4% of your portfolio every year gives you a 96% chance to not run out of money during a 30 year period. Therefore, a portfolio of 3 million dollars gives you a salary of 120,000 for no work. If you're willing to live anywhere other than the center of a large tech hub, 120,000 dollars is an incredible amount of money. I live in a city in Iowa, and you could live pretty comfortably with half of that, meaning your safe withdrawal rate is probably 2% instead.

I give an upper range of 10 million as a little leeway in case of extreme circumstances, or the SWR changing dramatically.

Of course, this definition of wealth is not the sort of wealth that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates has. I think there's a distinction between personal wealth, i.e. to live your life without any worries about money, and the political wealth that billionaires have to control entire countries. I just think that my definition is the useful one for this point. My definition also does not include income, which I think is an important part of what it means to be wealthy. My impression is that income could only include more people, rather than exclude people, because people with 3-10 million dollars have an amount of income by default, via their investments.

> It turns out jobs happen to exist in cities throughout the country. Almost all of them in fact.

There is so much more risk in moving for a job than just not being able to find a job. Firstly, the relocation expenses. First and last months rent, security deposits, truck/trailer rentals, gas, food, travel expenses, moving crews, insurance for the moving crew, temporary housing while moving, utility hookups, storage costs, spousal employment assistance, and loss-on-sale allowances for your previous home. I can't find any non-paywalled studies for estimates for the cost of all this, but from the research I've done on the internet, the minimum cost to move is around $1,250 to $5,000, on local vs cross-country moves. That is only for the cost of moving itself, and not on the lost revenue from not working.

> Families are also able to move as a unit if so desired.

Not always. What about families who are not in a single home? For example, a family could have a grandma that lives in a nearby retirement home. Not only may that grandma not know how to use a widely available resource, but what about for all the things that can't be done online?

Another issue is that a good proportion of Americans are relying on their families skills and finances. As according to [2], 12% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency bill. That means that when your car breaks down, you can't afford to go see a mechanic. If you're part of that 12%, you first take it to your aunt/uncle/grandma/grandpa/family friend, so they can look at it for no cost. If you live somewhere else you can't do that.

A final issue is the non-financial issues related to moving a family. There are multitudes of studies showing decreased well-being in children who move during childhood. Here's [3] for an example of one.

>It should also be noted that this already happens today and not so much so be the wealthy for whom moving actually is much less important. Take a look at net migration stats throughout the country: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/geographic-mobi....

I agree that, for the wealthy, moving is much less important. You have infinitely more resources to do it with, and furthermore, you have infinitely more resources to make your current situation livable. I'm not sure how this connects to your overall point though. I also downloaded the net migration stats, but I have no idea what they're supposed to mean in context.

> This idea that "only the wealthy" (how is this even defined??) have the autonomy to do anything is so played out in today's political discussions. It's a trope used without thought to the idea being proposed. No consideration given except that something might cost money and is therefore only doable by some abstract group of wealthy people.

Maybe it is a tired trope in political discussions, and that people are saying things without actually quoting the research. That's happening on all sides of any political discussion. But actually doing so is almost never worth the effort. To take a quote from Alberto Brandolini, "The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it". In a prisoner's dilemma sense, it seems better to reply to bullshit with more bullshit. At least then you can match the volume.

[1] http://www.retailinvestor.org/pdf/Bengen1.pdf [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-repor... [3] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/06/moving-well-...

[bhupy]

Perhaps a worthwhile goal for the Federal government would be to ensure a _positive right_ to be able to move freely within Member States.

A basic income is an underrated way of providing for this.

[xxpor]

More like ensuring people have cheap housing when they get there. In the current system any UBI to help people move to a new place will be consumed by the increase in housing prices.

[bhupy]

Take that thought one step further: an increase in housing prices will essentially keep the status quo in a given locality (unless more housing is constructed), so the people who couldn't afford housing before the UBI would not be able to afford it after the UBI.

The only difference is that now they have money to be able to afford a U-Haul and/or plane tickets and/or any other funds necessary to uproot their life to a more economically friendly place.

[Nasrudith]

That is a small improvement and rational in some ways - go to where their money goes further - turning a race to the bottom im their favor for once.

Unfortunately it would probably not be that great for growth long term and effectively create ghettos away from opportunities and such a concentration would be less able to support services when comprised of the lowest end. Better than homelessness certainly but....

[bhupy]

> Unfortunately it would probably not be that great for growth long term and effectively create ghettos away from opportunities and such a concentration would be less able to support services when comprised of the lowest end.

There's no empirical evidence of this happening anywhere else. The European Union and Switzerland are both thriving examples of decentralized governance with totally open borders and free trade, and they don't appear to have such "ghettos". Insofar as the EU has problems, it's that the Member States are starting to get skeptical of its power concentration.

I would even argue that the US today has economic ghettos because it is so centralized — it has a financial center, it has a tech center, it has a couple media centers, and everything outside is barren "flyover country". How many policy Ivy League graduate look to work in Washington DC, as opposed to one of the 50 State capitols?

[gonehome]

This is already true in a way, lots of people that can flee the midwest states for better economic opportunity on the coasts.

[BurningFrog]

I agree, but I think that train has sailed.

We're now firmly one country run by a "single point of failure" federal government. Sure, it delegates out some minor things to the states, but there is no doubt who is in charge.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> Citizens would be able to vote with their feet and move to the best systems

Completely ignoring the role of community, family and friends in the "pursuit of happiness".

Not to mention weather.

[fiter]

If we have more diversity in the kind of places where people can live, I suppose that we would have more people finding the place they want to live.

Other people replying to you in this thread seem to think people can live where they live right now and we can always resolve all the conflicting needs and desires. I think this hasn't been achieved because it cannot be. It is worth trying and why everyone should be involved in their community to keep it or change it to how they want, but I do think that there are points where you "give up" and move. I've done it before.