1. CENTRALISM VERSUS LOCALISM IN THE COMMUNITY.
- Author
-
Zimmerman, Carle C.
- Subjects
COMMUNITIES ,SOCIAL interaction ,CONSUMER goods ,SOCIAL services ,MUNICIPAL government ,BUSINESS turnover - Abstract
A community can be thought of as a municipal corporation, parish, or a retail trade center. It is also one of the more common forms of social organization, which mediates between the individual or the family and the outside world. In some periods, the community is concerned primarily with local self-government or regulation. At other times, as at present, communities take on numerous additional functions such as those of expanded social service. Such increased demands have resulted in community breakdown, with local control passing to larger groups such as state and nation and the emergence of a different type of local regulation. Localism meets a permanent and probably universal societal need. It represents one pole in the local central antithesis, both of which synthesis are necessary in total social organization. Neither localism nor centralization can be escaped in the ordinary administration of human affairs. Human nature has a dual aspect, which calls for duality in social organization community and society. The problems of life cannot be met satisfactorily by any system of social organization, which overemphasizes either polar element. The difficulties which man has in governing his affairs are results of cultural and personal conflicts and confusions and are found in both centralized and localized government.
- Published
- 1938
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