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USA: from Federal State to Nation-State

HB: Was it the federal effort in World War II that transformed the balance?

CC: There are a lot of stages. World War I is probably the largest expansion of the federal government, and this was a war in which we were only peripherally involved. That was the beginning of federal income taxes. Then came the New Deal in the 1930s, then World War II. It is tough to say which created more government. The Civil Rights legislation implicitly said that a state does not have the right to make its own laws in the realm of moral issues. So the government became the moral conscience of the states in the 1960s and it quickly began to abuse that power.

And the courts too have eroded the states prerogatives to the point where a court can rule that your baby is hostage to a hospital unless you have a car seat. Or the Justice Department overturning a California law that would have mandated clean fuel cars; or a federal court overruling the California plebiscite that cut off benefits to immigrants. The states do not have leeway to decide these things. They are like the states of the European union in certain tax matters: they have surrendered sovereignty.

HB: In this sense, America is becoming a nation-state – from having been a federal state-system?

CC: Absolutely.

HB: What would the long-term repercussions be in terms of how politics is played out in America after this change?

CC: Americans are getting much less democratic in their instincts. Their instincts are not toward participatory democracy. Part of the reason for this is television, part of it is consumerism. There was a very interesting moment after September 11th and it was something Bush was faulted very much for at the time – before all this war talk focused people’s attention elsewhere.

Bush gave a number of speeches after September 11th where he said: What you ought to do is go out and shop, travel, see our beautiful national parks and amusement parks! That is what I am supposed to do as a citizen? Buy Shit!? That’s my role?! That is what the American Revolution was fought for? “Just leave this diplomacy business to us”. This is a problem with the Bush style. It is a very patrician and paternalistic view of government that he has, that the whole family has. But the Paternalism may be even more prevalent in governments of the left. I think these things are exacerbated in Europe.

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foto: Weekly Standard