localized government some early thoughts

For some reason I am pondering the idea of transfer payments from federal to local governments this evening.

It strikes me that a relatively higher federal tax rate compared with state and local rates, and the transferring the money to local governments based on specific programs gives both a clear problem and a clear benefit.

The benefit is because of a problem that is suffered both on the state and especially at the local level in this country. Poorer areas collect less taxes on a local level, and thus in the interest of equity (and all that goes with it) federal transfers provide an important source of funding for less wealthy areas of the country.

On the other hand the idea of federal transfers bothers me in the sense that it allows the federal government to only fund programs that fit with the current administration's view of what are "useful" programs.

Thus I can easily make the case that we as a nation would be better off with a system of much higher domestic tax rates and much lower federal taxs. That is much smaller federal government and much larger local. It is very rare that I agree with a traditionally conservative view point (smaller federal government) however I think smaller federal government may be useful in this country on that condition of much larger power and amounts of money in the hands of local administrations. I am holding aside the issue of coruption of local governments which is certianly a problem....but a bigger problem than federal coruption?

Certainly I know what is best for me better than my neighbour does, and does not the same hold for localized government?

The role of the federal government regarding equality would then become generic transfer payments based upon regional income instead of funding specific programs?

More on this later. I just wanted to write some thoughts down tonight before I forgot them in the sea of life.

for me...why Marxism?

Do we "imitate those who contradict just for the fun of it"?
The multiplicity of reasons for choosing Marxism contain for me, in a noticeable way, the desire to rile against a system that is hegemonic.

Parallel to this I feel a strong need to question my reasons for fighting a system that has wronged my far less than it has wronged so many others. A system that I could choose to employ to my benefit instead of fight against without breaking with my youth and upbringing.

Jealousy of a basic kind plays a minor role in my desire to destroy the capitalists, and certainly I have a Utopian dream like many other Marxists. Not to mention my ever growing belief that the masses really do have the ability to self govern if it becomes technically possible, but there is something deeper that feeds my desire to criticize that needs exploring.

The complexity of desire plays a role in choosing to be a Marxist and certainly in deciding if and when to expand that into being revoultionary in ones Marxism.

conclusion to long shit i wrote on Lenin and Althusser

The inherent danger in viewing Marxism as a theory both of, and not of, the proletarian struggling against bourgeois ideology is that the preclusion accepted by many Marxists of eventual proletarian revolution can be jeopardized. Marxian ideology as something that contains the antithesis of the proletarian class revolution is an ideology than contains the possibility of bourgeois society pacifying the proletariat into acceptance of class exploitation. It is against this contradiction that Marxian theory needs to struggle to stay a theory of the proletarian in constant opposition to bourgeois ideology, regardless of internal struggle.

Hope

In light of my recent post expressing disgust at the lack of social consciousness and basic human decency in a group of petit-bourgeois and proletariat with whom I spent a social evening I feel compelled to write a short piece contradicting myself. The current actions of the workers in the "Republic Windows" plant in Chicago were an earth shattering event for my own stereotypes of the American working class.
I am both shocked and pleased. I believe that I have underestimated the ability of the humans. Their ability both to act, and to surprise me. I wish I could know what set these workers apart from so many others who would have taken their layoff and walked away instead of taking over the plant.
I still believe that the power of theory is important in determining the actions of these workers...but the power and actions of an individual theorist?
I stand humbled that such a strong display of collective action should occur so shortly after I condemned the ability of the American working people and questioned their basic education. This does not change that people (including myself) are capable of horrible thought and action but clearly I have missed a crucial point. Solidarity is not just something that people used to talk about before the Reagan administration.
I repeat I stand humbled by this display, but hopeful that it is just a starting point of many more like it. Regardless of future outcome I salute the employees of Republic Window and only hope that they realize since they are locked in the factory waiting for what is owed to them there is nothing (except the law and 100's of years of American tradition) stopping them from starting production back up and making windows without the capitalist.