Drawing the Line at Localism

"Catholic discussion of economic policy usually takes place on a ridiculous level of abstraction," rightly writes Jeffrey A. Tucker — There Is No Third Way. He says:

There are only two possible ways to organize the economic life of a nation. There is the market way, which relies on voluntary exchange, protection of private property, and no unwanted invasions of another’s space. The result of this system is commonly called the free market, or capitalism, if you will, but both terms are too limiting. The voluntary, property-rights approach encompasses more than economic exchange; it also encompasses the whole of the voluntary sector that empowers houses of worship, charitable institutions, the family, and every other institution that serves an intermediating role between the individual and the state.

The other system is very different. It uses the state to intervene in this voluntary system by use of the police power of force, coercion, guns, and jails. That means more laws enforced at gunpoint, taxation, forced redistribution, monetary manipulation, nationalization, war, and all the rest.

There is no third system.

You can invent all the terms you want – solidarism, distributism, fascism, democratic socialism, localism, or any other -ism – but it is logically impossible to get around the central issue of consent vs. coercion, of market vs. the state. You are either forced by law to do something – and the law always means force – or you are not. This is also true of the management of individual sectors of society, such as business relationships, education, international relations, consumer protection, care of the vulnerable members of society, health care generally, and all the rest.

Either voluntarism or force will prevail.

He is right as far as the "possible ways to organize the economic life of a nation," and the wrongness of "solidarism, distributism, fascism, democratic socialism," but not about "localism."

Communities, where any "level of abstraction" is well-nigh impossible, are within their rights to have a say in "the management of individual sectors of society, such as business relationships, education, international relations [conservatives should support, not mock, the fact that Berkeley, California has a foreign policy], consumer protection, care of the vulnerable members of society, health care generally, and all the rest."

Neighboring the town in which I grew up was the Village of East Aurora, which year after year denied a certain big box from operating there. Was anybody living there really harmed?