by Jerome G. Manis

During the past two centuries, a number of nations revolutionized their governments into more democratic forms.  It has been reported that 45 or so had decentralized their governments into federal systems during that period.  Of those about 27 broke apart or became entirely centralized or unitary governments.

The United States is one of the few nations that does not have a unitary government.  In ousting colonial England, 13 states first formed a simple confederation of loosely linked sovereign states but quickly rejected it in favor of a federal system.  That is, the national government has only those powers which its citizens have authorized in their constitution or through the legal actions of their elected representatives. Moreover, the constitution created divided political processes involving separation of powers, checks and balances, a bill of rights, and other features of federalism.

Nearly all of America's state governments have somewhat similar decentralized systems--with the notable exception of Hawaii.  Unlike the other 49 states, Hawaii controls and finances, through taxes, its school system, hospitals, harbors, jails, and more. The centralization of the Hawaii government is a powerful determinant of its policies and their outcomes, affecting schools and businesses, land values and unemployment, population and environment.

Is this socialism?  Some local notables have publicly charged that Hawaii is a socialist state.  Dictionaries and encyclopedias contend otherwise--that socialism refers to government ownership of production and distribution.  Critics of this view contend that any government control of free markets is socialism.  In their view, most modern, unitary nations--Canada, England, France, Germany--would be called socialist. That interpretation is rejected by reasonable observors for it makes no distinction between monarchies and democracies, between largely free peoples and dictatorial regimes.

Hawaii evolved from a monarchy which was overthrown largely by recent newcomers who retained many of the same procedures for government as had its predecessors.  In Nation Within (1998), Tom Coffman points out that the 1890's overthrow of the monarchy took place despite the opposition of the vast majority of island residents--mainly native Hawaiians.  With the aid of United States naval forces, a small clique of haole (white, foreign) leaders became the new government.  Although established by a coup d'etat, it was described as a "republic."  That was not true.  It clearly was a powerful oligarchy but obviously not a socialist regime.

The self-appointed leaders were a handful of American immigrants and descendants of missionaries or merchants.  No elections were held and the voices of the 98% native population were unheard.  A small oligarchy of "officials" acquired highly centralized powers over the Hawaiian majority.  Of 40,000 surviving Hawaiians, petitions against annexation by at least 21,000 (and possibly another missing 16,000) were ignored by the local despots, President McKinley, and the Congress of the United States.

To Coffman, the outcome of annexation was the formation of a nationally countenanced autocracy that was maintained from 1897 to 1959.  A handful of autocrats  served (in his words) "the sugar-based economy of Hawaii through interlocking, plantation corporations.  These are the corporations that became known as the Big Five."

Soon after the annexation of Hawaii, the United States enacted an "Organic Act"in 1900.  It excluded -aliens+ from the right to vote.  For Hawaii that meant exclusion from voting rights of 3/4 of the adult Hawaiian male population.  Since women did not possess voting rights, only about one-tenth of Hawaii+s residents could vote. Moreover, virtually all important posts in the territorial government were appointed from Washington, usually upon recommendation of the Big Five.

Limited in influence by the monarchy, the economic power of the Big Five was strengthened by great political powers accessible through annexation.  A handful of white men now ran Hawaii.  According to the 1903 attorney general of Hawaii, "There is a government in this Territory which is centralized to an extent unknown in the United States, and probably almost as centralized as it was in France under Louis XIV" (Gavan Daws, Shoal of Time, 1968).

Hawaii's centralized and underfinanced public schools were assessed in 1920 by a federal investigating committee. Their report was critical of the state's affluent property owners whose low taxes resulted in limited funds for public schools (still unchanged).  To the affluent haole authorities, the cost of schooling local children was excessive and unnecessary.  Their own children attended costly, private schools.

Territorial status offered great wealth and power to the major landholders and plantation owners.  The great profits of the Big Five were achieved through very low wages to their plantation workers.  They were able to do so, first, with ship loads of Chinese coolies in 1852 and then, in 1886, Japanese were imported as a counterbalance. The plantation labor force later included Filipinos, Koreans, and Okinawans.  These workers were controlled by lunas, the largely Portuguese overseers.

To the plantation owners, advocates of statehood threatened their control of authority, legislation, police powers, and economic dominance.  Through Big Five controls of 96% of Hawaii's sugar crop in 1933, they dominated the state+s banking, insurance, utilities, transportation, and merchandising enterprises.  Above all, they had massive power over their field workers.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act in 1937, unions and strikes continued to be fought by local police--at times, with live ammunition.  Despite such incidents as the so-called "Hilo Massacre," unionization remained opposed and fought by Big Five and its political powers.

During the late 1930s and the beginning of World War II, unionization grew rapidly.  A turning point was the 1941 contract agreement between the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and the Castle and Cooke Terminals.  It was the beginning of increased union powers and decline of the Big Five political controls.

Although World War II martial law had strengthened Hawaiian centralization, the return of famed veterans of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team altered the political scene.  Most importantly, they helped to widen political participation and economic opportunities.  However, they had little effect on the unitary nature of Hawaii's governance. Nor did statehood mark any significant alteration of centralized structures.

As a unitary state, Hawaii has been able to exercise control of both great and small aspects of local units.  Both the city of Honolulu and the state of Hawaii oversee different streets and intersections, each providing paving, crosswalks, traffic lights, and signs.  The state has designated specific city areas, such as Kakaako, for development, its building heights, and distances between buildings.  While cities usually operate convention centers, the state of Hawaii chose the place, built the structure, and finances the operation of its convention center.

Certainly, there are advantages to centralization.  As we know in commercial enterprises, size produces economy, efficiency, and productivity.  With most of its population, businesses, and facilities on Oahu, the state of Hawaii gains benefits from its centralized government.  A centralized government may be able to deal more effectively with the global economy and its consequences. In theory, at least, a centralized marketplace could work most effectively with an equally centralized political sphere.

That's the theory.  In practice, it appears to have worked in the reverse.  Lobbyists of the dominant businesses, powerful unions, and pressure groups roam the corridors of political power and greatly influence state legislation, policies, and taxes while unemployment, a brain drain, small business failures and bankruptcies have been ignored.  The powers of the Big Five have shrunk, but they have not disappeared.  The tourist industry has become the Big One in the business community.  A number of highly endowed tax-exempt foundations also exert great influence in the state governance.

Centralization of Hawaiis government has not helped the state to diversify its economy.  Still a one-industry, tourist system, there is little sign of change.  Although government leaders have voiced interest in developing as a "health services state," software producer, communications center, and other modern industries, there is no apparent evidence of their efforts or progress.

Most importantly, democracies are quite different from private or corporate enterprises. Protecting schools, health services, jobs, small business, environment, and farms may not be cost-efficient or profitable.  In varying degree, each of them (and others) may be desirable to the majority of the public and to state well-being.

Hawaii's unitary government always has favored and benefited centralized business enterprises.  From the plantation economy to its contemporary tourist economy it was and is primarily a one-industry system.  The benefits of political power, tax benefits, facilities, and subsidies have gone, in turn, from the plantations of the past to the tourism of the present.

The ten-billion-dollar Bishop Estate--owning 450,000 acres of  local land--has been closely interwoven with the centralized state of Hawaii. Funded by a 19th century Princess, it was intended to provide education for native Hawaiian children.  Its five trustees have been appointed by members of the state Supreme Court who in turn are appointed by the state govenor.  Two of the five deposed trustees were either a president of the state senate or a speaker of the House.

A number of legislators have been its employees or the recipients of retainers who have been criticised on charges of voting on issues which could benefit or harm the Bishop Estate.  One outcome is the  April, 1999 state senate failure to reappoint the state attorney general who had been prosecuting trustees of the estate.  At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service was ordering the removal of all estate trustees or be faced by the loss of its tax-exempt status.   Fortunately for the people of this unitary state, the federal government is limiting the powers of Bishop Estate trustees.

Hotel room taxes were not imposed in Hawaii until the mid-1980s, among the last in the nation.  They still are among the lowest in the United States, while part are returned to tourist industry promotion.  In addition, the state allocates $60 million in tax revenues annually to such promotion. It subsidizes sports, filming, and television in order to attract visitors.  Despite many warnings, Hawaii has built a $350 million convention center for similar reasons.  Ignoring these signals is costing millions in dollars from state funds to make up the yearly losses from its predicted unsuccessful and limited occupancy.

In opposition to the centralization of Hawaii, and its ensuing benefits for the upper strata have been many efforts at modification.  Although the Home Rule party of 1900, rather than Republicans or Democrats, won the first territorial elections after the nation's annexation, its aims were slightly different from those currently viewed as home rule. Its focus was to give native Hawaiians more political power. Although it succeeded in winning a majority of the legislature in its first efforts, it was short lived and soon disappeared.

Viewing home rule as actions to transfer any state powers to local communities, some residents have struggled for it. and been rejected by legislatures and judiciary.  In the latter days of territorial status, the state's legislative reference bureau issued a detailed summary of the conflicts and their outcomes.  The report noted that the territorial supreme court had upheld territorial powers over subordinate political units.  Home rule in Hawaii still seems unattainable.

A similar fate has befallen efforts to legislate residents' powers of initiative and referendum. They would give citizens the right to initiate laws and to require legislators to enact desired legislation. During the past century, most states, particularly the western-most states, have achieved some form of those citizen rights.

Groups have been formed in the state of Hawaii to promote such legislation.  Their representatives and private citizens have met with legislators who at various times submitted bills into the legislative mill.  None has ever been approved.  For the present, such efforts are not widely evident.

Over the years, small segments of the population have carved out facets of power: the 1890 autocrats, plantation owners, Big Five, the Bishop Estate, unions, Japanese, Democratic party leadership, tourist industry, and others.  Still, the evidence is clear.  The state of Hawaii is firmly, if not irrevocably, a highly centralized political unity.  Individuals, cities, and counties have the minimal powers typical of centralized political systems. As a territory and as a state, Hawaii has remained under a unitary government.

Copyright --June 15, 1999, Jerome G. Manis