FUTURE SHOCK THE THIRD WAVE

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 7th, 2022 in Space

THE THIRD WAVE

The resultant Constitution of 1787 was an ingenious compromise. Because First Wave forces were still strong, the Constitution reserved important powers to the states rather than the central government. To prevent overly strong central power it also called for a unique separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. But the Constitution also contained elastic language that would eventually permit the federal government to extend its reach drastically.

As industrialization pushed the political system toward greater centralization, the government in Washington took on an increasing number of powers and responsibilities and monopolized more and more decision-making at the center. Within the federal government, meanwhile, power shifted from Congress and the courts to the most centralist of three branches—the Executive. By the Nixon years, historian Arthur Schlesinger (himself once an ardent centralizer) was attacking the “imperial presidency.”

The pressures toward political centralization were even stronger outside the United States. A quick look at Sweden, Japan, Britain, or France is enough to make the U.S. system seem decentralized by comparison. Jean-Franc.ois Revel, au* thor of Without Marx or Jesus, makes this point in describing how governments respond to political protest: “When a demonstration is forbidden in France, there is never any doubt about the source of the prohibition. If it is a question of a major political demonstration, it is the [central] government,” he says. “In the United States, however, when a demonstration is forbidden, the
first question everyone asks is, ‘By whom?'” Revel points out that it is usually some local authority operating autonomously.

The extremes of political centralization were found, of course, in the Marxist industrial nations. In 1850 Marx called for a “decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state.” Engels, like Hamilton before him, attacked decentralized confederations as “an enormous step backward.” Later on the Soviets, eager to accelerate industrialization, proceeded to construct the most highly centralized political and economic structure of all, submitting even the smallest of production decisions to the control of central planners.