for the Feds to solicit and administer one large contract than ten small ones, but it would be easier and cheaper for ten •. states to administer one small contract each. . Governme!1t _Programs have gre,;t difficulty making effective use of existmg local resources. Thus considerable rationale exists for handling many activities from a regional rather than a national level. Many regional networks already exist, know . local problems, resources and how to operate locally1It is much 1:1ore difficult and expensive for a national program to deal with local problems. 1 , Regional networks can operate several orders of magnitude more effectively-cheap transportation, housing, etc., ability to fo_cus existing resources into new responses to problems ✓ (pul!mg alr~a~y funded_ lo~al people and organizations toget,her to divert existmg energies mto a.t. work), ability to gain local support and funding. Regional networking kinds of organization can give all members a strengthened and truer sense of their ability, worth, importance and values-none are indispensible, all can initiate things, and make contacts themselves directly. In ·any national organization or program set up from .the . top down, the tendency is for smaller scale.elements (i.e., us) to exist at the pleasure of the center. Organization developed from local bases can allow the power base to remain with local groups-any regional or national activity then exists at their pleasure and can be changed or eliminated by the local groups. A top-down organization tends to centralize activities that occur at different scales while locally based structures, such as fed~rations, tend the opposite direction. Cooperative efforts need tc;:i occur at different scales-the question is where • the control lies. Perhaps the greatest drawback is forgetting that there are usually several ways to successfully achieve a goal-with each' having secondary effects which are very different yet equally as important as the primary goal. . ~overnment progqtms also suffer a particular malady of logic common to large-scale projects. There is a contagious illusion (?f reality and effectiveness in planning multi-mi'llion ?ollar pro~rams-planning perfectly logical structures by addmg, or takmg away hundreqs of thousands of dollars without any se~se of the realit_ies ?ehi11id. the d?llars or the situation. Logic deals-only with interial consistency. It gives no sense of whether the program fits or can adapt to the realities 9f where and when ~nd by whom it is.to be applied to what context. There seems to be an inherent assumption that if a problem exists, can be defined, and a logical gover~mental program developed to deal with it, that such is the desirable way to go, although the direct and indirect effect·s of state, local, individual or no action may frequently be preferable but unexamined. June, 1978 RAIN Page 7 Don't locally funded small-scale projects have a_ny problems? You bet they do. Lack of expertise, frequent failure to deal with problems on a large enough scale, local politics, lack of funds, to mention a few. But their score on all the human, economic, and effectiveness·levels seems to be better overall than large-scale activities, with the exception of a few areas. / where national coordination is essential. And it's a lot easier '_for people to live with their own shortc0mings than with someone else's shoved down their throat. •. . ~· :· .- - . :.: . ~ ,'\ So what is the answer to the question we started withIs gov'!rnment assistance 'to a.t. desirable? 1 There is no answer. Many small-scale process~s that wil,l require no subsidy in their actual operation may require a vast amount of work in development, .shakedown, and dealing with _the /politics and hassles of conversion from larger systems. Often that work oenefits us all, but its effort may destroy small projects or burn out individµals who have to do it on their own. Assista9ce may h~lp. Toughing it through m~y be better. Each case is individual. Sometimes it's justified to play Robin Hood and take soi;ne from the big rich system for the poor sma.ll ones. Depends if you're good enough not to get burned. But Robiµ Hoods depend on having that big rich system. Diversity and redundancy of approaches are vitally impor- ' tant. Government alone has little. Local projects have a lot. The two together may have more. Or less. ·It depends upon our particular situations, ne_eds and abilities whet~er it's more strengthening or more debilitating to go it alone. It also depends on the trend of things. There is no single point where too much government funding or participation is too much-but there is some point where it has gone too far, destroyed·too much local initiative, where too much responsibility has again b_een given ·up to the government. - _Small scale, localized technology can either evolve into a decentralized form of.a centrally controlled society or into a decentrally controlled ·one. They are totally different things. The demo'nstrated viability and desirability of one or the other in a thousand of small situations will decide which. It's up to each of us. ■ '
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