Howdy all,
The Am-EU group starts with
The Circulation of Elite's Happier Federalist Stories substack article and then moves to
Chapter 10 of Dr. Andrew's Łobaczewski's
Logocracy: A Concept of the State System (translation by Harrison). In that chapter, we finish the general overview of the chapter by Harrison and left off at the beginning of the first major header: "Ownership of Property". The synopsis follows:
The Circulation of Elites - Happier Federalist Stories (Switzerland and Canada)
Federalism is a type of government with powers split between regional governments and an overarching, general government. Over the years, the West's federalism degenerated to top-down federal states, and eventually led to a funneling of power into national, unitary states.
There was a time when the Swiss system was in danger of permanently becoming a unitary state, and doing away with its bottom-up and communal approach. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, Switzerland did eventually adopt a unitary government in 1798. Forces were looking to keep it that way, but it only lasted a few years. Swiss federalism largely avoided this potentially unfortunate fate largely due to its historic political structure—the Swiss cantons:
During the periods of chaos in 1848 (European Revolutions of 1848), the Swiss settled on the idea of "modern federalism" that is composed of three levels, each given portions of state powers:
- Federation (federal)
- Cantons (regional)
- Communes (local)
The Swiss parliaments largely resemble the U.S. senate in that it consists of:
- National Council - 200 seats divided among the cantons according to its population.
- Council of States - 2 members from every full canton, for equal representation and giving smaller cantons a better chance in the political sphere.
In balancing these state powers, the federal state has been kept in check largely due to the historic presence of the Swiss cantons. Its main mission is to manage foreign relations, maintain the national army, and act as an arbiter or intermediary for the cantons. Its other powers include upkeeping the federal postal service, currency and coinage.
The main branching points transforming U.S. federalism into a top-down approach that outwardly portrays itself as one that is bottom-up is the introduction of the 10th amendment, where in its ambiguity, is able to funnel and centralize power at the federal level:
While the Swiss system borrows much from the U.S. 1787-89 constitutional federation, this amendment would likely not fly in their system due to its aforementioned history and its natural checks to prevent power grabs by the federal state. One check in particular is the federal state's overall magnitudes lower federal spending in relation to the U.S. The author notes that in federalism, those "who control spending, controls the federation".
Canadian federalism on the other hand, takes inspiration from Britain's federal system rather than the US'. Learning from the US civil war, it sought to adopt a more centralized federal approach to governance, citing that the decentralized U.S. system is what caused much of their strife. The founding fathers however didn't find it feasible to instate a pure, unitary government due to the sheer size of its country.
In essence, this led to an initial pooling of power in a centralized government, with one such example is their last word on any provincial legislation. Over the course of 150 years, there were repeated failed efforts to create a regionally representative senate as such as the ones in place in the US and Switzerland.
Despite this, Canadian federalism over the years have trended towards a more federal populist system, with the formation of a provincial rights movement soon after its 1867 founding as its first major marker towards equal treatment of provinces in the confederation. Another turning point was the transfer of natural resource management to the provinces, giving them negotiation leverage over the federal state. Even the federal state's ability to overturn provincial legislation was effectively made null, only being invoked during WWII—a time of crisis. In Quebec, many decisions were also made to protect its communal spirit with regards to its institutions, traditions, culture, and language.
In relation to both the Swiss and Canadian systems, the US' federalism has taken an unfortunate route in its top-down approach, creating a facade system where it preaches democracy and populism, but its innards are one that more closely resembles an oligarchy. With the recent COVID corruption for all to see, it is in the hopes that through its chaos people will actively look for solutions—perhaps reviving traditions and values of its lost, but deep federalist roots of the USA for which it was originally founded.
For Next Meeting - November 11th, 2023
We will continue with
Logocracy - Chapter 10: Ownership of Property at the "Ownership of Property" subsection for next time.
I will unfortunately be missing this meeting, but will aim to be at the next one. Have a good one and see y'alls!
