Progressive federalism enables a minority rule that shifts generates political efficacy and makes UBI+ politically palatable

Federalism and localism, in contrast, depend on—even glory in—the idea of minority rule. Neither theory requires you to like every policy passed at the local or state level any more than a nationalist has to agree with everything that Congress passes. But our current system rests on the assumption that decentralization can produce a healthier democracy in the long term. Ours is a world in which decision-making bodies of every sort (school committees, juries, city councils) are dominated by groups of every sort (Italians and Irish, Catholics and Jews, Greens and libertarians). We don’t worry about this representational kaleidoscope—let alone condemn it as “segregated”—merely because one group or another is taking its turn standing in for the whole. Perhaps we shouldn’t worry when it is a racial minority group in that position

Minority rule can promote both the economic and political integration of racial minorities. We have long understood minority rights as furthering those goals, which is why we care so much about them. But minority rule can further these goals as well. Often when we talk about democratic equality, we focus on its symbolic benefits rather than its material ones. We talk about the dignity of political participation but wrinkle our noses at the idea of political patronage. But history suggests a more muscular account of what a democracy can do for minorities. Politics can play an important role in promoting economic integration, and economics can play an important role in promoting political integration.

Pam Karlan and New York University Law Professor Sam Issacharoff, for example, have argued that the economic progress of African Americans has turned not on the vindication of civil rights, but on business set-asides, affirmative action, and government employment. In their view, these programs came about precisely because blacks were able to elect their candidates of choice in majority-minority districts. “[T]he creation of a black middle class,” they write, “has depended on the vigilance of a black political class.” A group of economists at George Mason University found that black employment rates, for instance, rise during the tenure of black mayors, an effect that is particularly pronounced for municipal jobs. One might even argue that this was the story of integration for white ethnics, as Justice David Souter once argued. In Souter’s view, the Lithuanian and Polish wards of Chicago and the Irish and Italian political machines in Boston helped empower these groups. That power, in turn, “cooled” ethnicity’s “talismanic force.” In these examples, political power didn’t just facilitate economic integration. The economic advantages associated with political power exerted a gravitational pull on outsiders, bringing them into the system and giving them a stake in its success.

Admittedly, this argument involves a more rough-and-tumble account of democracy than we read in our civics textbooks. And it certainly offers a less pristine view of integration than the one we associate with the rights model. But while we have long recognized the dignity conferred by the rights afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment or civil-rights statutes, we should also acknowledge the dignity involved in groups’ protecting themselves rather than looking to the courts for help. Indeed, this notion resonates entirely with the lesson of the civil rights movement. Rights were not “conferred” upon African Americans. They fought for them, pushing reluctant national leaders to do the right thing.

Those who favor racial integration might also value minority rule for reasons that have nothing to do with its material benefits. We have long believed that political participation matters for equality. But we typically think of participation in highly idealistic and individualistic terms while ignoring crass concerns like who wins and who loses. Academics thus praise diverse democratic bodies because they involve the “politics of recognition”; they grant racial minorities the “dignity” of voice, ensuring that they play a role in any decision-making process.

However, when one turns to the question of winners and losers, the limits of the diversity paradigm are clear. While the diversity paradigm guarantees racial minorities a vote or voice on every decision-making body, it also ensures that they will be the political losers on any issue on which people divide along racial lines. Racial minorities are thus destined to be the junior partner or dissenting gadfly in the democratic process. So much for dignity.

Minority rule, in sharp contrast, turns the tables. It allows the usual winners to lose and the usual losers to win. It gives racial minorities the chance to shed the role of influencer or gadfly and stand in the shoes of the majority. Local institutions offer racial minorities the chance to enjoy the same sense of efficacy—and deal with the same types of problems—as the usual members of the majority. Minorities get a chance to forge consensus and to fend off dissenters. They get a chance to get something done and to experience the need for compromise, as dissenting from the margins normally comes with the luxury of ideological purity. And as with members of the majority, racial minorities don’t just have a chance to represent their own group—they have a chance to take their turn to stand in for the whole, which Princeton Professor George Kateb describes as a key feature of representative democracy.

If the “politics of recognition” theorists are correct that the diversity paradigm—granting racial minorities a voice on every decision-making body—represents an acknowledgment of equal status, then federalism and localism acknowledge the ability of racial minorities not just to participate, but to rule. In place of what some call the “politics of presence,” we have the politics of power. In place of the dignity of voice, we have the dignity of decisions.

The effects of turning the tables are not, of course, confined to racial minorities. It also deprives whites of the comfort and power associated with their majority status. The notion of turning the tables thus taps into a deeply intuitive idea of democratic fairness. Democracy works better when the usual losers sometimes win and the usual winners sometimes lose. Everyone ought to experience, in the words of President Bush, a good “thumpin’.”