Editorial: The Center Cannot Hold

This month Vermont Commons delves into the nature of government: small government.

In his article, “Republicanism and Size,” Don Livingston informs us that small size is not only a factor in defining good government, but a requirement for its very existence. Not only does a state need to be of appropriate size to hang on to its culture, sovereignty, legal egalitarianism and general well being; smallness allows it to generate the virtues of a humane society in the first place.

The size of government determines its function. The function determines its size.

Memoirs of a Moderator

By John McClaughry

On a brisk March day in 1967, my neighbors rather suddenly chose me to moderate town meeting.

This struck me as a wholly unlikely event. I had come to the Northeast Kingdom town of Kirby in May of 1963, on foot, with a knapsack, sleeping bag, an axe, and Kephart's Camping and Woodcraft. I started to build a log cabin on the 206 acre piece of land on Kirby Mountain that I had bought one year before. The price was $2400. The payment terms were 6% interest and three years to pay it off.

With the help of two college pals with time on their hands, we got the cabin up and (barely) livable by August. But since I didn't have a source of income, I went off to Washington to work for a short-lived Republican magazine, and then as a legislative aide for Vermont Senator Winston Prouty.

Republicanism and Size (Part 1 of two parts)

By Donald W. Livingston

The Second Vermont Republic is not yet a reality, but is what Plato called “a republic in speech.” For this reason it is important to understand what could be meant in saying that it is a “republic.” This might seem an easy task, for we are quite familiar with the term. But that is the problem. Nearly every state in the world today claims to have a “republican” character. The idiom of “republicanism” cuts across ideological lines of left and right. Some say a democracy cannot be a republic. Yet, some states describe themselves as democratic republics, or even as democratic socialist republics, or as liberal democratic republics. There are communist republics, constitutional republics, people's republics, and republics ruled by dictators. The French Republic produced the first totalitarian regime - complete with a reign of terror - and was later ruled by an emperor, Napoleon. The United States claims to be a republic, but so did the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Benjamin Franklin, when asked what kind of government came out of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, was supposed to have answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.” To enter the forum of “republican” speech is to enter the Tower of Babel. But one thing is clear. Whatever a republic is, it must be a very good thing since most everyone wants to identify with it.

Looking for Real Democracy? - Look Around

By Kirkpatrick Sale

It is usually claimed that the United States is a democracy, but you only have to think about it for a minute to realize that a term that means “rule by the people” has to be mightily and torturously stretched to apply to a system in which the people make none of the consequential decisions of the nation.

We are allowed to vote every so often among an array of candidates we seldom know to select one that will make thousands of decisions in our name for the next two or six years. They do not know, and do not pretend to know, what we think before they make those decisions—and, after all, the members of the House of Representatives actually “represent” an average of 643,000 people in their individual home districts and could not possibly find out even if they wanted to.

Re-Inventing Vermont: Towards 21st Century Blueprints

Editor's Note: In 1989, Vermont independent Chelsea Green Press published Frank Bryan and John McClaughry's The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale. Now, close to two decades later, as citizens of the United States empire confront global Peak Oil realities, stupendous corporate corruption, titanic military expenditures, massive electoral fraud, runaway federal spending, and a “war on terror” that Mr. Cheney promises “will not end in our lifetimes,” we need to re-visit Vermont-focused books like this one.

As Chelsea Green Press now brings The Vermont Papers back into print, what follows is a section from the book's opening pages, setting our 21st century stage with uncanny prophetic vision.

Reviving Town Meeting:
An interview with Susan Clark
[author of the book All Those In Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community (Ravenmark, 2005).]

Q. You say that your new book about Vermont town meeting is a “call to action.” What do you mean by this?

We need to act, because Vermonters are losing our collective voice. In recent years, Vermonters—both at the individual and at the town level—are letting go of our traditional, face-to-face town meetings. Increasingly, we're moving to the Australian ballot system; or we're shifting decisions to the state or national level; or we're just not showing up at all when decisions get made.

The True Congress

By Frank Bryan

“Town meeting is the true Congress, the most respectable one ever assembled in the United States.”

Henry David Thoreau, Reform Papers, 1835

The time has come for Vermont to lead America away from the centralist, hierarchical and fundamentally inhumane social and political structures mandated by the age of industrialism and toward Leopold Kohr's "world of a thousand flags" – a world not of fewer mega-states thirsting for power, consumed by greed and driven by paranoia, but more, many more, and smaller, much smaller, nations based on humanity, modesty and trust.

Independence Begins At Home

By Peter Clavelle

We have all heard that “charity begins at home.” Charles Dickens popularized that phrase more than 120 years ago. In the year 2006, it is time to coin a new adage: “Independence begins at home.” It is time to breathe new life and meaning into the ideal of independence, into the spirit of democracy. And there is no place more fitting to launch this new independence movement than right here in the State and the 251 communities of Vermont.

The Second Vermont Republic has certainly stirred some interest. This quest to return Vermont to the status of independent republic—a status held from 1777 to 1791—has sparked thought and generated controversy. I too find appeal in the vision of a Vermont that practices direct democracy, fosters sustainability, and promotes economic self-sufficiency. But the Green Mountain Independence movement must begin at home. We must first achieve independence within Vermont, transforming the relationship between State government and Vermont's communities and their citizens.