The Advantages of Localism in Welfare

This extract is from Daniel Hannan’s 2010 book The New Road to Serfdom. A Letter of Warning to America:

First, large bureaucracies create unintended consequences. Where states and counties can tailor their policies to suit local needs, a uniform system that covers 300 million people is bound to contain loopholes, tempting into dependency some who were never envisaged as claimants.
Second, proximity facilitates discernment. Person A may be a deserving widow who has been unlucky, while person B is a layabout. Local caseworkers may see this clearly. But if the universal rules handed down from Washington place the two applicants in the same category, they must be treated identically.
Third, pluralism spreads best practice. The freedom to innovate means that local authorities will come up with ideas and pilot schemes that Washington  would never have dreamed of.
Fourth, non-state agents – churches, charities, businesses – are likelier to involve themselves in local projects than in national schemes, and such organizations are far better at taking people out of poverty than are government agencies.
Fifth, localism transforms attitudes. In Europe, many see benefit fraud as cheating "the system" rather than cheating their neighbors. People would take a very different attitude toward, say, the neighbor whom we knew to be claiming incapacity benefit while working as an electrician if they felt the impact in their local tax bill.
Finally, and perhaps most important, localism undergirds the notion of responsibility: our responsibility to support ourselves if we can, and our responsibility to those around us – not an abstract category of "the underprivileged", but visible neighbors – who, for whatever reason, cannot support themselves. No longer is obligation discharged when we have paid our taxes. Localism, in short, makes us better citizens.

Make good sense to me. But the arrogant elitist politicians who are addicted to power will balk at following or even considering this advice.