Imagine a world where no federal, state, or county government dictates how you live your life. When you want to start a business or build a house, you gather with your neighbors—perhaps 150 souls, the natural size of a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone—to decide the best course of action. Instead of navigating bureaucratic red tape, you hire a consultant or private company to verify all aspects of the project. The entrepreneur, risking their own capital, retains full control of how their business operates, while the community ensures its compatibility with local needs and values.
Your house, unencumbered by unnecessary government interference, is built at the lowest possible cost without compromising quality. No costly fees, permits, or inspections from slow-moving government officials are required. Instead, you hire reputable architecture and engineering firms to certify each stage of the build. These certifications assure future buyers of the home’s quality and integrity. Without waiting for government sign-offs, the process becomes faster, more efficient, and tailored to individual needs.
This vision may sound idealistic, but it is grounded in a fundamental principle I call proximalism—governance rooted in physical, emotional, and political proximity where you directly influence, and are influenced by, those closest to you.
The Core Philosophy of Proximalism
Proximalism asserts that human life thrives within proximal spheres—spaces where relationships are tangible, accountability is personal, and power is distributed among people who know each other’s names, families, and stories. This isn’t just about geography; it’s about the fundamental unit of human organization that our psychology and biology are designed for.
Research consistently shows that humans can maintain meaningful relationships with approximately 150 people—known as Dunbar's Number. Our brains, emotions, and capacity for trust and cooperation are designed to thrive within small groups where reputation mattered, where helping your neighbor meant they'd help you, and where antisocial behavior couldn't hide behind anonymity.nymity.
Metaphysically, proximalism recognizes that reality is most meaningful in your immediate sphere—your home, your neighborhood, your township. Distant systems like federal regulations distort this reality, imposing abstract rules that ignore local conditions, relationships, and needs.
Epistemologically, proximalism holds that knowledge arises from reason applied locally. A township debating water use, drawing on data from local wells and understanding local geography and needs, will make better decisions than a state mandate created hundreds of miles away by people who have never seen the community in question.
Ethically, proximalism fosters reciprocal duty rooted in relationship rather than coercion. You fix a neighbor’s fence not because the government mandates community service, but because they shared their harvest with you last fall, and you know their children. This builds trust without force, cooperation without compulsion.
Politically, power rests with small communities practicing direct democracy—imagine a township app where 150 residents vote on road repairs, land use, or community standards, making decisions in real-time without the delays and corruption of distant bureaucracies.
Aesthetically, proximalism celebrates these triumphs through local art—paintings of community markets, stories of neighborhood cooperation, music that captures the spirit of people who choose to build something together.
The Flaws of the Status Quo
This book is about creating a new way of governance built on proximalist principles. Incremental, patchwork solutions to our current system are futile. They merely plug the holes in a ship destined to sink. Our society is plagued by what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls anti-fragile systems—structures that grow weaker under pressure rather than stronger. When the current system inevitably fails, it will result in unnecessary suffering, shortages, and deaths. The only way to avoid this is to acknowledge and address the root causes of our dysfunction now.
The fundamental flaw is distance—physical, emotional, and psychological distance between those who govern and those who are governed. When bureaucrats in Washington D.C. make decisions about farming in rural Kansas, or when state officials in capital cities determine building codes for mountain communities they’ve never visited, we’ve violated the basic principle of proximalism.
This distance enables what I call the tyranny of abstraction—rules created by people who will never live with their consequences, enforced by people who don’t know the communities they’re regulating, funded by taxes collected from people who have no meaningful voice in how those resources are used.
However, this is not a manifesto for a perfect global system of governance. Perfection is unattainable, and attempting to impose it would be its own form of hubris. Instead, this book presents a vision for incremental progress, starting with proximalist principles and building toward long-term solutions rooted in human nature and psychology.
The Philosophy Behind Proximalist Governance
As a classical liberal, I adhere to the principle of non-aggression. This principle, however, does not preclude an exchange of care and protection within communities. Giving up some measure of control is necessary for cooperation, but the ultimate freedom—the right to exit—will always be inviolable. In a proximalist system, if you don’t like your community’s decisions, you can move to one that better aligns with your values. This mobility creates competition between communities, encouraging better governance and preventing tyranny.
As a humanist, I believe in systems that promote the long-term continuation of the human race. Achieving this requires working with, rather than against, our human nature. Humans are not all inherently altruistic or communal, but we thrive when we have purpose and connection within our proximal sphere. Governance should inspire individuals to strive for something greater than themselves, transcending the mundane pursuit of necessities while remaining grounded in real relationships and tangible communities.
When people have meaning and purpose rooted in their immediate community, basic needs like food and shelter become stepping stones, not end goals. This is why proximalist governance must begin with fostering trust, accountability, and shared values at the community level—among people who see each other at the grocery store, whose children go to school together, who share the same roads and breathe the same air.
The Power of Proximal Relationships
At the heart of proximalist governance are the relationships that bind us together within our natural sphere of influence. Unlike the thousands of pages of rigid rules that govern us today, this system relies on the strength of human connection within communities small enough for everyone to know everyone. It creates a positive feedback loop: as people uphold community standards, they develop a sense of belonging and purpose that reinforces their commitment to the community.
However, this framework requires voluntary participation within the proximal sphere. It succeeds only when individuals choose to cooperate and trust one another based on actual relationships, not abstract concepts of citizenship or legal obligation. This trust, in turn, becomes the bedrock of all societal transactions. Without trust between people who actually know each other, compromise and cooperation crumble under the weight of contention.
Proximalist governance acknowledges the noble and magnanimous traits in all of us while recognizing that these traits emerge most naturally in small-scale, face-to-face communities. It works with human nature, not against it, by calling on our capacity for forgiveness, tolerance, and goodwill toward people we actually know and interact with regularly. By building close-knit communities of optimal size, we can address the inefficiencies and waste that plague centralized systems.
Freedom Through Proximal Trust
One of the core principles of proximalist governance is that no one has the authority to levy taxes, penalize, or imprison you without a personal relationship with you or clear accountability to your immediate community. Trust between individuals and their proximal community replaces the need for distant, impersonal authority. This fosters a system of accountability rooted in mutual respect and understanding between people who share daily life.
We will then no longer fear those whose salaries we pay, because they will be our neighbors, accountable to us not as abstract citizens but as people they see at community gatherings, whose families they know, whose reputations matter in shared social spaces.
If we are stopped by a community safety officer and they don’t know who we are, they can contact someone in the community who does know us personally. Justice becomes restorative rather than punitive because it’s administered by people who understand the context, relationships, and community impact of any wrongdoing.
Consider what a difference it will make when we are taken care of by people who know and love and respect us—not as case numbers or tax identification numbers, but as neighbors, community members, people with names and stories and connections. And if they don’t know and respect us, then we have the opportunity to build those relationships or find a community where we can.
Consider this: under centralized governance, distant bureaucrats stymie innovation, mismanage resources, and steal our dreams through inefficiency and overreach. Proximalist governance, by contrast, empowers individuals to take ownership of their lives within communities small enough to be responsive and accountable, unencumbered by unnecessary oversight from people who don’t understand local conditions or relationships.
Building Resilient Proximalist Communities
To make proximalist governance work, we must address several key principles:
Proximity and Connection: Physical closeness to one’s community of approximately 150 people fosters trust and accountability. This isn’t arbitrary—it’s the scale at which human relationships can remain meaningful and personal rather than abstract and bureaucratic.
Moral Foundations: Teaching morality and critical thinking within the community context inoculates individuals against mass manipulation and authoritarianism. When people know each other personally, it’s much harder for demagogues to pit them against each other.
Freedom to Fail: Failure is an essential part of growth. Individuals and communities must be free to make mistakes and learn from them without interference from distant authorities who don’t understand local circumstances.
Efficient Justice Systems: Swift and fair resolution of disputes is critical to maintaining trust and order within the proximal community. Justice works best when administered by people who understand the relationships and context involved.
Digital Skepticism: While technology can enhance efficiency, over-reliance on digital tools risks dehumanizing our interactions and enabling authoritarian control from distant centers of power. Proximalist communities prioritize face-to-face interaction and local decision-making.
Economic Localism: Communities should strive for as much economic self-sufficiency as practical, reducing dependence on distant supply chains and global systems that can be manipulated or disrupted by forces beyond local control.
Each proximalist community must have the freedom to determine how these principles are implemented. Some may adopt hybrid models that blend elements of the current system with proximalist practices. Others may chart entirely new paths. The key is flexibility, voluntary participation, and the right to exit if a community’s approach doesn’t work for you.
Living Examples of Proximalist Principles
Proximalism isn’t theoretical—we can see its principles at work in communities that have maintained human-scale governance despite the pressures of centralization.
The Amish, with their population of over 400,000 in North America, exemplify many proximalist principles. Their communities average 150-200 members per church district, aligning perfectly with optimal human social organization. They practice mutual aid, community decision-making, and local accountability. When they need to build a barn, the entire community contributes labor and resources. Their children learn trades and values through direct participation in community life rather than abstract instruction in distant institutions.
Native American tribal governance also demonstrates proximalist principles, with tribes maintaining sovereignty over their territories and making decisions through councils that understand local conditions and relationships. While federal interference has undermined much tribal autonomy, successful tribal enterprises show how communities can thrive when they maintain control over their own affairs.
Even in modern suburban contexts, we see proximalist impulses in neighborhood associations, community gardens, local business cooperatives, and volunteer fire departments where neighbors take responsibility for each other’s welfare rather than relying entirely on distant government services.
The Proximalist Path Forward
Proximalist governance is not just a political framework; it is a cultural shift toward human-scale organization and authentic community. It requires individuals to take responsibility for their own lives while fostering trust and cooperation within their immediate sphere of influence. This is a revolution in governance—not through violence or coercion, but through the quiet, persistent building of better systems at the human scale.
The transition to proximalism begins wherever you are, with whatever community you can influence. Start by getting to know your neighbors. Participate in local decision-making. Support local businesses and local food systems. Practice mutual aid. Build the relationships and trust that make proximalist governance possible.
Some communities will embrace proximalist principles more fully than others. Some regions will develop networks of proximalist communities that cooperate on larger issues while maintaining local autonomy. The beauty of proximalism is that it doesn’t require everyone to participate—it just requires enough people to demonstrate that human-scale governance works better than distant bureaucracy.
By embracing proximalist governance, we can unlock human potential, foster innovation, and create communities that work for everyone who chooses to participate. It begins with education, moral teaching rooted in relationship, and the courage to trust one another within communities small enough for trust to be meaningful.
The path forward is not without challenges, but the rewards—freer, more prosperous, more human communities—are worth the effort. Proximalism offers a way back to governance that serves human flourishing rather than abstract systems, communities rather than bureaucracies, relationships rather than regulations.
The future belongs not to those who can centralize the most power, but to those who can build the strongest communities. The future is proximalist.
Please check out my other chapters where we have explored how proximalist principles apply to specific areas of life—from education and economics to justice and environmental stewardship—and examine practical steps for building proximalist communities in the modern world.