Intro; Preface; Contents; List of Figures; List of Tables; Chapter 1: On the Problem of Scale; References; Chapter 2: Economic Cubism, Economic Surrealism, and Scale Relativity; 2.1 Introduction; 2.2 Scale Invariance; 2.3 Cubism and Scale Invariance; 2.4 Surrealism and Scale Invariance; 2.5 Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 3: Scale Invariance in Constitutional Political Economy (CPE); 3.1 Introduction; 3.2 CPE's Scale Invariance; 3.3 CPE's Dichotomies; 3.3.1 The Analogy Between Markets and Politics; 3.3.2 CPE and Complexity; 3.3.3 CPE and Methodological Individualism
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3.3.4 Modalities of Small-Scale Organization3.3.4.1 Rationality; 3.3.4.2 Risk Aversion and Privacy; 3.3.4.3 The Contractarian Approach and the Origin of the State; 3.3.4.4 Economies of Scale and Political Group Size; 3.3.4.5 Power Relations and Welfare Economics; 3.3.5 Modalities of Large-Scale Organization; 3.3.5.1 Political Economy and the National Scale; 3.3.5.2 The State as a Machine; 3.3.5.3 Methodological Individualism; 3.3.5.4 Homo Economicus; 3.4 Examples of CPE's Scale Invariance; 3.5 Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 4: The Tower of Babel Syndrome; 4.1 Introduction
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4.2 The Emergence of the Ecological Crisis4.3 Locality in the Responses to the Ecological Crisis; 4.3.1 The Historical Response; 4.3.2 The Modern Response; 4.3.3 Localism and the Earth Charter; 4.3.3.1 The Preamble; 4.3.3.2 The Principles; 4.3.3.3 The Way Forward; 4.3.3.4 How the Modern Response Marginalized Localism: The Fiction of 'Indigenous Peoples'; 4.3.4 How the Modern Response Marginalized Localism: The 'Natural Rights' Paradigm; 4.3.5 The 'Complexity Imperative' Illusion; 4.3.6 Summary; 4.4 Concluding Remarks; References
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6.5.1 Issues with Defining the Concepts of Democracy and Size6.5.2 Democracy and Output Proxies; 6.5.3 Democracy as Evolutionary Fitness; 6.5.4 Summary; 6.6 A General Theory of Morphogenesis; 6.6.1 Definitions; 6.6.2 Propositions; 6.7 Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 7: The Principle of Subsidiarity; 7.1 Introduction; 7.2 A Brief Introduction to the Principle of Subsidiarity; 7.2.1 Subsidiarity's Economic and Ethical Foundations; 7.2.2 Subprinciples of Subsidiarity; 7.2.3 Subsidiarity as Self-Organization; 7.2.4 Subsidiarity and the Prisoner's Dilemma
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Chapter 5: A Décollage of Kropotkin, Mumford, Boulding, Bookchin, and Schumacher5.1 Introduction; 5.2 Evolution, Organisms, and Hobbes; 5.3 Morphology, Structure, and Scale; 5.4 Civilization, Capitalism, and the Nation-State; 5.5 The Resurrection of City Confederations; 5.6 Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 6: The Morphogenetic Foundations of Economic Change; 6.1 Introduction; 6.2 An Analogy with Organisms and Complexity; 6.3 Economic Change as Morphogenesis; 6.4 A 'Histopathology' of Economic Change; 6.5 Democracy as Evolutionary Fitness
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
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This book uses historical analysis, constitutional economics, and complexity theory to furnish an account of city subsidiarity as a legal, ethical, political, and economic principle. The book contemplates subsidiarity as a constitutional principle, where cities would benefit from much wider local autonomy. Constitutional economics suggests an optimal limit to jurisdictional footprints (territories). This entails preference for political orders where sovereignty is shared between different cities rather states where capital cities dominate. The introduction of city subsidiarity as a constitutional principle holds the key to economic prosperity in a globalizing world. Moreover, insights from complexity theory suggest subsidiarity is the only effective response to the 'problem of scale.' It is a fitness trait that prevents highly complex systems from collapsing. The nation-state is a highly complex system within which cities function as 'attractors.' The collapse of such systems would ensue if there were strong coupling between attractors. Such coupling obtains under legal monism. Only subsidiarity can make the eventuality of collapse improbable. The emergent and self-organizing properties of subsidiarity entail a shift in policy emphasis towards cities with a wide margin of autonomy. Benjamen Gussen is a constitutional jurist at the Swinburne School of Law. He was admitted to the legal profession in New Zealand in 2011, and in Australia in 2014. His main area of research is comparative constitutional law-and-economics. He is an expert on the principle of subsidiarity and its application in unitary and federal polities. Dr Gussen is the Vice President of the Australian Law and Economics Association. Prior to joining Swinburne, Dr Gussen taught at the University of Southern Queensland, the University of Auckland and the Auckland University of Technology. Before embarking on his academic career, Dr Gussen worked in government and industry in the United States, the Persian Gulf, and New Zealand.--