As I mentioned in other comment below, small communities are more able to deal with the Tragedy of Commons issues, since they do not have to formalize their solutions for full generality. This is in agreement with the "localization" article from Oil Drum that you cited.
The practical problem of switching to locality governing is of course the more powerful federal or central "problem solvers". The Reagenesque governments that we mostly have form indeed a problem, not a solution. One should settle for the mindset that not much particular help ought to be expected from them (unless you are in the privelleged class). If only they can be influenced to regulate emissions and share energy resourses kindly, the world is not the worst possible.
In case of aggressive or even armed requisition campaigns (as brought up in yet other thread below), all ingenuity must be used to isolate the upper government and let it collapse on itself as soon as possible. Every thug can be fooled in one way or other. Some toll burdens can be tolerated, but the levying job must be made very demanding, or futile.
I think this is a critical and crucial insight now spreading, albeit slowly. "full generality" is as much of a mythology as infinite growth. the same farming techniques do not work in one climate as well as in another, or even in two different fields on the same farm. one of the primary dicta of permaculture is that you must observe your land and its microbiomes very closely to understand what will work in each tiny subregion, for maximal productivity and health.
this is antithetical to the totalising, reductionist ambition of C19 thought which sought to discover "universals" and then smash all particular data sets into the universal moulds. One Way of doing things had to be right (and of course it was Our Way). we could see this as an outgrowth of monotheism, insisting on One Centralised God (kind of like a spiritual monopoly capitalism, or a dictatorship); and its offspring include Taylorism and the search for the One Most Efficient Way of producing a chair, which must then be imposed on every manufactory in sight -- which leads us gradually but inevitably to the Company World with One Soft Drink, One Hamburger, One Operating System, all replicated identically and imposed in every environment, every culture, every neighbourhood without variation, using workers who have been reduced to robots following numbered instruction steps in a three ring binder.
this approach fails miserably when it is applied to biotic systems, because the very definition of successful biotic systems is that they are dense, diverse, and highly adaptive to local conditions. the attempt to farm every acre of apples (corn, potatoes) identically with every other acre of apples (corn, potatoes), to make every apple as nearly as possible identical with every other apple, etc., has led us to the brink of agricultural disaster.
in the political sense, "full generalisation" means top-down government from the most centralised nexus, be it DC or Brussels or the WTO HQ, imposing some Suit's fantasy of the One Best Way onto millions or billions of people whose realities are inconceivably fractal and diverse. solutions to Peak Oil, solutions to water shortage, responses to the increasingly violent vagaries of a destabilised climate, will not be successful if imposed top-down by totalising generalisers. they will have to be local, informed with "local knowledge" (a sailor's term for actual lived experience, over many seasons, of the winds tides and hazards of a given sailing area). three ring binders will not solve the problem.
don't get me wrong; centralised or generalised law making has its place, I am not a big fan of abolishing the State altogether. basic human rights laws, the preservation of national and continental watersheds and biotic treasuries, assurance of safe passage for individuals exercising their (universal) right to mobility, the oversight of elections -- some standards can be defended as universal and enforced globally. but practical hands-on solutions to resource management, crop diversity, public health etc. cannot be dictated as one-size-fits-all by a Central Committee (or a board of directors -- just two names for the same bunch of elite clowns thinking God appointed them to micromanage the unwashed).
the design for a comfortable and healthy home varies considerably depending on the climate and terrain. people should be allowed to figure this out locally and build what works for their needs and their climate. universal laws should prohibit their using slave labour to build that home, or cutting down endangered forests to do so, etc. -- but local conditions should determine the shape and thermal economy and materials and design of a home appropriate for its microregion; and local democratic process should determine local land use and allocation of water, woodlot, etc.
all of which is a verbose way of saying I agree with the quoted comment, strongly. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
ts offspring include Taylorism and the search for the One Most Efficient Way of producing a chair, which must then be imposed on every manufactory in sight -- which leads us gradually but inevitably to the Company World with One Soft Drink, One Hamburger, One Operating System, all replicated identically and imposed in every environment, every culture, every neighbourhood without variation, using workers who have been reduced to robots following numbered instruction steps in a three ring binder.
I think it's more that you get One Product for the confomists and A Different Extra Special Product for the Overt Noncomformists, possibly with a Quirky Homespun Alternative for those who want to get back to their hands-on earthy roots. (Those last two can sometimes be combined successfully.)
The narrative space that marketing and lifestyle choices live in is really shockingly small.
Apart from that - I'm wary of eulogising small local solutions because historically small local solutions often haven't been terribly good. Sometimes they've been very good indeed, but just as often - not so much.
People may know their locality, but without cross-fertilisation their skill and talent base is correspondingly small.
I think the monotheistic/local line is a false dichotomy. What promotes diversity is open, or at least very cheap, access to non-local insight and tools. The best of all possible worlds is diverse sharing and enhancement of local small-scale solutions, and the role of government should be to make sure that as much sharing and innovation happens as possible.
The other role of government is to maintain a framework of stability in which sharing can happen effectively without the threat of unlawful parasitism - either by local thugs, or by corrupt government.
