Thomas Storck, William Cavanaugh's "Killing For The Telephone Company," A Critique
A response to both Storck and Cavanaugh: Cavanaugh and the Question of the State by Joshua Bowman
The major problem with Storck's critique is that he ignores the problem of scale - perhaps an assumption about scale is implicit in Cavanaugh's critique of the modern state but he should have made it explicit. Aristotle, as I don't cease to point out, certainly had much to stay about scale and we are reminded of the fundamental importance of scale to the health of a community by 20th century thinkers like Leopold Kohr, E.F. Schumacher, and Kirkpatrick Scale.
The consolidation of power, political and economic - facilitated by improvement in communication and cheap energy. Earlier large political units (I would not call them polities) were forced by the limits of energy and communication to be somewhat decentralized, with some empires more decentralized than others (Roman and Chinese and Persian).
What of the managerial state, with the development of bureaucracy which seeks to legislate every tiny detail? What bigger violation of "subsidiarity" could there be at this point, as the bureaucracy serves those who hold power and implements their will?
Even if they claimed to be sovereign would their claim be just or right?
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