Christian Ethics Today

On the Goodness of Government

James A Nash

On the Goodness of Government
By James A. Nash
Executive Director
Churches` Center for Theology and Public Policy
Washington, D.C.

Article Contents:

  1. Both Negative and Positive Functions
  2. THE TERRIBLE TRIAD
  3. Devolution
  4. Deregulation
  5. Privatization
  6. Human Rights and Governmental Roles
  7. Federal Functions
  8. Conclusion
  9. Endnotes

This is an important, relevant, lucid statement by the director of the Churches` Center for Theology and Public Policy, Dr. James Nash. That Center is a national, ecumenical research center which exists to support the linkage between theological-ethical reflection and Christian social action. (As a founding member of the Board of Directors for that Center, I am glad to have had a part in naming it in the beginning and then in supporting it during its first decade.) This essay was prepared for the 1995 Winter issue of that Center`s journal, Theology and Public Policy, and is printed here with Dr. Nash`s kind permission and blessing. — Foy Valentine

The purpose of this essay is to defend a proposition that is now widely dismissed as indefensible if not ludicrous. It prompts even some progressives to snicker. The proposition is: Government is good! That is, civil government is not some "necessary evil" but rather an indispensable good. This is true not only of state and local governments but also of the federal government in the United States, and often especially the federal government. Government is good not only in its basic purposes or functions, but also oftentimes–though clearly not always and never fully–in the forms designed to fulfill these functions. If moral action requires that social solutions be proportionate to the severity of problems, then strong and active government–particularly the federal government–seems to be one of the social structures necessary to match effectively the social and ecological problems that confront our nation and the community of nations. The best government is not the one that governs least but the one that governs in proportionate response to public needs. Indeed, from some Christian and other religious perspectives, government is the blessing of God to meet these public needs.

None of this is to deny, however, the obvious: Governments–their structures, practices, and officials–are oftentimes bad, sometimes really bad. The evils and follies in government are legion:

There really are some "jack-booted thugs"–mostly small numbers–in nearly all law enforcement departments in the US, from ATF agents to local sheriff`s deputies. Many of us have encountered them, and thus know that even the National Rifle Association occasionally gets it partly right. There really are "evil empires," including sometimes local governments in the US, which resemble the "beast" in Revelation 13. And plenty of politicians really are demagogues, uttering preposterous lies, stretching the delicate fibers of civility with their rancor, exploiting the public`s anxieties and baser motives, and bullying the poor by blaming them for our plight. Surely the American people have many good reasons for their deep discontents with and suspicions of government. Political anger and alienation are often reasonable responses to reality. 

Most citizens today, of whatever political stripe, recognize many of the multitude of deficiencies in American government, particularly the federal government. But these deficiencies of government are largely reflections of our society`s deficiencies in vision, value, and virtue. Government as practiced is always a morally ambiguous phenomenon, reflecting the mix of good and bad, in different degrees, that we the people are. Moreover, government both embodies and constrains human sin (as well as finitude). A realistic interpretation of government`s capacities to fulfill its functions depends on a realistic awareness of the powers of sin. Sin is the foundational injustice in human character and, in accentuated form, in all human institutions; it is the self-centered urge to defy God`s covenant of justice by grasping more than our due (as individuals, corporations, nations, and species) and thereby depriving others of their due. Sin affects all human reality. It is not a peculiar defect of government, as some of the main government-bashers suggest, but it is a universal defect in all human projects–including a variety of abusive economic and religious powers on which government is a valuable check. This awareness of the ubiquitous powers of sin can save us from the statist illusion that governmental action can overcome moral ambiguity, but it can also alert us to the important moral role of government in constraining social sin.

Though government is too often a contributing part of major public problems, it is also an indispensable and often primary partner in any acceptable solutions in a modern society. The reason is that government is the only social institution that can represent the interests and responsibilities of a given society as a whole. Thus, in light of human ambiguity, any sustainable argument for the goodness of government entails not only an affirmation of certain normative functions, but also a commitment to the reformation of governmental forms and practices into just and effective instruments of the normative functions.

This commitment to reformation demands, first, that government must be continually challenged to reduce its corruptions and to realize more fully its potential as the defender of the common good.

Second, it demands "the constitutionalization of politics":2 government must be constitutionally limited, with democratic participation and accountability, full and equal political rights, the "rule of law,"3 and a just separation and distribution of governmental powers to protect both the common good and personal autonomy from human inclinations to abuse power. Coercion is not the foundation of government; consent is. Though coercion is a basic tool of government, it is legitimate only if the authority to exercise coercion is derived from the consent of the governed.

Third, this commitment demands governmental stimuli for the "freedom of association." The well-being of a sophisticated society depends on a great variety of strong voluntary institutions independent of government. A just government will do more than merely tolerate or accept these associations; it will encourage them, maintaining the conditions and incentives that enable them to flourish freely and fairly, both as buttresses against the abuses of the state itself, and as critical means for people to satisfy their shared interests.

There is an urgent need now for a fundamental defense of the goodness of government, particularly the federal government. The downsizing and demonizing of government are diminishing governing capacities, while licensing and unleashing malicious forces that only effective government might hold in check. At a time when our nation`s social and ecological problems are growing in size and scope, the powers of the federal government to respond to these ills are being deliberately dismantled in Washington–often with the financial assistance and ideological proddings of the concentrated economic powers that expect to prosper at public expense. Robert Bellah and his colleagues are right: "Americans fool themselves when they think they can strengthen democracy by weakening government."4 The size and scope of government must be commensurate with the organizational and technological complexity of the society to be governed.5 Our political goal should not necessarily be smaller or larger, weaker or stronger, civil government. Where government needs to be stronger or weaker is a question to be decided contextually and prudentially, not generally or ideologically. Instead, our goal should be government that is strong and active enough to perform adequately each of the many critical roles that government can play best or only government can play at all.

The present political conflicts in Washington are more than petty party rivalries or power games, though they are plainly at least that. They are also in some significant measure fundamental debates in political philosophy, particularly on the appropriate purposes and practices of government. The political Left has not fared well in these debates since well before the 1994 elections. It has failed frequently to make a strong argument for certain federal roles in response to the simplistic and shallow diatribes against government by the political Right. Progressives frequently have not recognized the main issues in the debate about government, and they are answering questions that the public is not asking. Too many have been arrogantly complacent about the governmental failures, prodigalities, and corruptions that justifiably infuriate the general public. Though it certainly will win some elections, largely by being only very modestly to the Left, or by imitating the budget-cutting accents of the Right, progressivism probably will not fare well politically until it takes this debate seriously, acknowledging the vices of government but also offering a compelling case for the virtues of government. The questions dealt with by that arcane discipline called political philosophy have never been more practical or relevant. Indeed, the questions are also critical issues of philosophical and theological ethics, since some ultimate matters of value are at stake.

Thus, this essay is a contribution to one of the most important public projects–and equally important theological problems–of our time: revitalizing a positive vision of the purposes and functions of government, particularly the much-beleaguered federal government.

Both Negative and Positive Functions

A prominent political assumption in American society, dominant on the political Right, is that the main or only legitimate functions of governments are negative or protective–that is, to control or defend against wrongdoers, as opposed to positive or welfare functions. On this assumption, national defense and domestic police functions are usually quite popular. In fact, the present generation of anti-federalists in Congress wants to spend billions more for military purposes than even the Department of Defense has requested, while eliminating federal economic entitlements for the poor.

On this negative assumption, conservative interpreters, and a lot of others, respond favorably to one of James Madison`s clever comments about government in The Federalist Papers (1787)–a comment, incidentally, that runs counter to his more positive interpretations in that source. Madison argued, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."6 That seems axiomatic to many; government exists as a response to sin, to combat evil.

This negative interpretation of government has been a prominent focus of movements and interpreters in Christian history. For example, Martin Luther might have agreed generally with Madison. Reflecting the perspectives and political conditions of his times, Luther emphasized the negative functions of government, though he also recognized some positive or welfare functions–in public education, for example. Moreover, Luther had a very positive view of even the negative functions of government, which he expressed against the anti-government forces in the Radical Reformation. In a memorable affirmation, he describes "worldly government" as "a glorious ordinance of God and splendid gift of God….it is the function and the honor of worldly government to make men out of wild beasts and to prevent men from becoming wild beasts."7 For Luther, "real" Christians, who are very rare, do not need government, since government exists to constrain evil doers by coercion, and real Christians do far more by grace and love than the law can command. Yet, the real but rare Christians sanction and sustain government for the good of their neighbors–to prevent evil, protect the innocent, secure justice, and preserve peace for the common good.8

This negative or protective function of government is essential but it will not stand alone. It needs a positive or beneficent balance, as Madison and Luther knew. Even if humans were angels, government would still be necessary, not to combat evil in this case, but rather to organize the social and ecological common good–that is, to enable cooperative decisions, to express our interdependence, to share our social benefits and burdens fairly and effectively, and to maintain standards and structures of order to avoid chaos. All of these positive functions are necessary no matter how noble our nature, and none will happen automatically in some political version of the Invisible Hand. The "stateless society" is an anthropologically groundless idea. The quest to make the state "wither away," that curiously shared goal of classical Marxists and libertarians, is, as John Calvin argued against the political antinomians of his age, "an outrageous barbarity,"9 since civil government is essential to our humanity:

Its function among men is no less than that of bread, water, sun and air; indeed, its place of honor is far more excellent. For it does not merely see to it, as all these serve to do, that men breathe, eat, drink, and are kept warm, even though it surely embraces all these activities when it provides for their living together.10

Even angels require governance to avoid evil effects and to do good. In fact, in the absence of government, even a society of angels would quickly degenerate into demons–maddened, for example, by the chaos in a modern society without such elementary forms of governmental regulation as traffic lights and rules for orderly travel, and standard weights and measures so that an ounce and an inch are the same in Dallas and Duluth. Indeed, part of the goodness of government is that it enables public expressions of human goodness that otherwise could not occur.

Thus, in proper appreciation for the human condition, the negative roles of government need to be supplemented and balanced by certain positive or beneficent ones. These will stress, for example two of the six purposes in the Preamble to the United States Constitution: "to form a more perfect union" and to "promote the general welfare." They will develop the positive side of two others: to "establish justice" and "insure domestic tranquillity." Indeed, the positive and negative roles of government function inseparably and interactively in actual societies, each potentially enhancing the capacities of the other.

In both its negative and positive functions, civil government in Christian perspective can rightly be understood as a gift of God for the common good. Government is ordained by God–but not in the foolish sense that Romans 13:1-7 (the prime proof text for tyrants) has been malinterpreted by a host of conservative commentators in theological history. In this misconception, the existing forms or systems of government–kingdoms, empires, principalities–are established by divine decision and operate by divine right, and, therefore, are exempt from public interventions to establish justice. Contrary to this view, government is ordained by God in a more empirical and dynamic sense: certain functions of government are basic needs of the human character God has created. The need for structures of order and justice, collaboration and communal responsibility, are built into our being and are essential conditions for our well-being as relational creatures. Government is grounded ontologically in the relational and, therefore, moral constitution of the human creature. Moreover, when the prevailing forms–the structures or practices–of government fail to maintain the integrity of the moral functions of governance needed by our moral constitution, reformation is always necessary and rebellion may at times be justified.

Humans do not exist as isolated individualists, entering into minimalistic and external contractual alliances for self-protection. That assumption is the foundational error of the now dominant political philosophy in the Congress. Rather, we are internally relational creatures–social and ecological animals–dependent from cradle to grave on the genetic, environmental, and cultural heritages that shape our perspectives and possibilities. We are parts and products of relational systems–kin groups, voluntary associations, communities, nation-states, the human family, and even the biosphere. Our relational condition gives rise to corporate interests–goods that we share in common, goods that can be secured only through collaboration, public interests that are more than the sum of our individual interests.

Our moral responsibilities for sharing and cooperating arise from this relational condition. We are ethical animals precisely because we are forced by our relational condition to reflect and act on questions of the good and rightness in relationships. Defensible moral norms are not essentially subjective, cultural, or otherwise arbitrary preferences. They are the objective conditions for living together most effectively. Moreover, we depend on rules of relationships–modes of governance–for surviving and thriving. We, therefore, are truly political animals because we are social and ethical animals.

Thus, government is not an institution necessitated only by a Fall, not a creation of the devil, as Pope Gregory VII insisted in 1081,11 and as numerous American Christians seem to believe. Of course, sinful human inclinations to injustice are an important warrant for government, as numerous theological interpreters have recognized. But government is also and primarily an intention of creation and an expression of providence for the common weal. The state is, as Aquinas argued, a "natural association," given in the "laws" of our nature, for mutual assistance and a division of responsibilities.12

Government, in its functions, has a divine vocation, conferred directly by God in the creation of humanity and existing quite independent of any religious traditions or institutions. Indeed, the sacred role of government is to be a fully secular institution, serving no salvific functions such as promoting "true religion" or even generic religion. It is called to serve as the just protector and benefactor of all its citizens, equally and universally, whatever their ultimate commitments, as the only social unit capable of representing the relevant social whole. Contrary to the aspirations of the Christian Right, the state exists not to be the Defender of the Faith, but to be the Protector of the Common Good.

THE TERRIBLE TRIAD

My affirmation of the functions of government clearly is a rejection of the political philosophy now dominant in Congress.  This philosophy, if in its crassness it can be dignified with this designation, is probably best described as selective libertarianism.  It stresses the minimalistic role of the state as an instrument of social policy, and expresses a moral atomism in celebrating individual freedom excessively over social responsibility.13  It is selective in its libertarianism–usually being ferociously anti-federalist, but still occasionally authoritarian, eager to use the powers of the federal government to enforce, for example, rigid standards on abortion.  This political perspective has spawned a terrible triad of operational norms that are socially and environmentally regressive.  These three are devolution, deregulation, and privatization.  Each of these interwoven values might very well be warranted in particular cases, to be determined contextually and prudentially.  But they have been elevated foolishly to ideological universals, to be applied generally and in principle.  As such, they fit quite uncomfortably, if at all, with traditional Christian norms of social responsibility for the common good.  It is important to examine these three values critically, not only because they represent the contemporary antithesis of my affirmation of government, but because of their present, powerful influence.

Devolution

Devolution might more accurately be described as defederalization or even confederation, for it is clearly connected with a reaffirmation of states’ rights.14  In fact, even the doctrine of nullification, the pre-Civil War claim that the states have the sovereign right to overrule or refuse to enforce federal statutes, shows signs of returning to respectability.  In any case, devolution means returning political powers from the federal government to the states, usually with the rationale that the states are more competent, more accountable, more efficient, more effective, and even more honest than federal authorities.  All of this may be true in particular cases, but it is at best an amusing illusion in many other cases.

Most state governments have very mixed records, and some have abominable ones, in integrity, accountability and competency.  In some places, venality reigns.  The fact is that all states to some degree, and some states to a high degree, need “the feds on their backs” (and vice versa in the mutual accountability inherent in a federal system).  The federal government, acting under the blessed mandate of the 14th Amendment, has been frequently the protector of citizens’ rights–and as the history of the civil rights movement reminds us, often against the state governments that devolution romanticizes.

Devolution means much more than the local flexibility and discretion in implementing national standards that few would dispute in principle.  It also and primarily means the reduction or elimination of national norms applicable to all states and responsive to significant national problems.  In fact, that is the intention of current versions of “block grants”–lump-sum payments, rather than categorical grants, to the states in welfare, Medicaid, housing, energy, and so forth, with each state deciding its own spending priorities in accord with very minimal mandates from the Congress, along with reduced federal funding.  In most states, devolution likely will result in lower standards and less vigorous enforcement in various social and environmental protections.  It probably also will result in a “race to the bottom” as states compete, each protecting itself against the others, to cut welfare and other public service costs.

Most important, as former New York Governor Mario Cuomo argued in a recent significant reaffirmation of political progressivism, devolution means, “the abdication of [national] responsibility:”  “The biggest, most daunting challenges awaiting us demand national solutions, or at least a national contribution to the solution. Leaving each state to its own devices, transforming us into the Separate States of America, is no solution at all.”15  In arguing that devolution erodes national rights and responsibilities, Cuomo quotes Senator Carol Moseley-Brown:  “We are deciding whether or not these United States are one country or a conglomeration of fifty separate entities.”16  That is the fundamental question with which devolution confronts the American people.

Deregulation

Deregulation is reducing or eliminating governmental regulations (both statutes and rules) protecting public security and environmental integrity.  One major reason given for deregulation is preventing restraints on trade and commerce–that is, reducing or eliminating the allegedly antiquated and/or excessive legal constraints and resultant costs on business and industry that hinder competition in a global market, or restrict new products from being marketed quickly.  Deregulation now seems to be a primary purpose of much of the majority agenda in Congress.  Indeed, I would argue that the basic purpose of devolution is not really the decentralization of power but rather the deregulation of the federal system.  If so, that is a matter of major significance, because regulation is a fundamental function of the federal government.

Moreover, the prime purposes in pushing for the reduction of federal spending in the present Congress are not only reducing the deficit, balancing the budget, or enabling tax cuts, but also reducing federal regulation itself, by limiting its resources and therefore, its capacities to regulate.  That seems clearly to be the prime purpose behind the “takings” legislation embodied in the House-passed Private Property Protection Act.  This legislation expands the interpretation of the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of just compensation to property owners for public confiscations of property; it would require also public compensations for significant reductions in property values resulting from legal restrictions on property use, such as protecting endangered species or wetlands.  Some compensation might very well be morally justified and strategically wise in particular instances, though the instances are probably very few since exemptions and relief mechanisms have long been part of the regulatory process in laws like the Endangered Species Act, particularly for small landowners to prevent economic hardship.17  The intention behind the “takings” legislation, however, is apparently not to encourage federal expenditures for compensation; rather, it is to deter or prevent federal regulators from enforcing the Endangered Species Act and other laws, in order to avoid the risk of heavy compensation claims, especially when federal funds have been severely curtailed.

        That intention also seems to be behind the “unfunded mandates” legislation.  The purpose is not simply to force the federal government to fund legal mandates imposed on the states (which is often fair, assuming that the states have not been guilty of violating their constitutional duties to their citizens), but rather to discourage any federal mandates since they would need to be federally funded.  The result has come to be known as “de facto deregulation.”18  Combined with a chilling conservative political climate, the reduction in federal funding reduces the resolve and the resources to regulate.  That, indeed, is the defunders’ intention in the promiscuous downsizing of federal agencies.

The ideology of deregulation is often accompanied by celebrations of self-regulation by business and industry–presumably the same economic powers that gave us the environmental degradation, fraud, workplace dangers, and the other moral shortcuts which compelled public regulation in the first place.  These institutions are apparently now reformed or reformable through market incentives or disincentives.  This perspective on self-regulation is either moral cynicism or moral naiveté–that is, either an astonishing deception perpetrated by human sin itself or an equally astonishing breakdown in moral realism about the social powers of human sin.  The former seems far more likely in light of the other signals of cynicism sent by the fans of deregulation.

No doubt, self-regulation is commendable and we ought to promote it.  Moreover, we can expect some responsible corporations to self-regulate on principled grounds, and many other corporations will do so expediently in order to avoid giving cause for creating new public regulations.  Nevertheless, serious violators of public safety and environmental integrity will be common, as traditional Christian emphases on human corruptibility and the need to control economic and political power would lead us to expect.  Classical conservatism shared these traditional emphases;19  in fact, whatever political philosophy deregulation represents, it is not classical conservatism!

John Bennett has some typically wise counsel on questions of public deregulation:

It is sometimes said that the state should not act in the economic sphere because morally it is better for people to do voluntarily what they ought to do.  In terms of motive this is true and also…unless there is a large element of willing acceptance legal coercion is likely to fail.  But it is morally better to decide that what is required to meet the needs of people be effectively done even though this may involve coercion of oneself as well as others than it is to oppose such legal action so that one may have the experience of feeling more moral.  The willing acceptance of law as applied to oneself is a true form of voluntarism when the situation demands it…Law is necessary in part because of man’s sin, because of his tendency to be unwilling to do enough voluntarily.20

The regulatory function of government is a primary means of public protection.  These powers vested in the federal government provide us with uniform national standards for national problems, as well as protections against concentrations of economic power that are far too strong for the separate states to regulate adequately.

We live in a sea of regulations.  They make life tolerable in a modern society, dramatically increasing its safety and security.  We generally take these regulations for granted, but we also welcome them when we recognize them:  airline and automobile safety standards, federally inspected meat and poultry, nursing home standards, rules for workplace safety and child labor, public protections of private pension plans, codes for the construction of buildings and highways, aggregate catch quotas to prevent overfishing of some commercial stocks, provisions for reliable public disclosure on the stock market to protect investors from fraud and corruption, truth-in-savings laws to protect consumers from bank fraud, accurate and standardized information in food labeling of ingredients and nutrition (thanks to one of the deregulators’ favorite targets, the Food and Drug Administration), and procedures for the manufacture and disposal of thousands of hazardous chemicals. The list could go on at great length, and the primary complaints against the vast majority would be that the regulations too often are insufficiently strong or inadequately enforced.  Robert Kuttner is clearly right in the title of a convincing column:  “Who Believes in Government Regulation Anymore?  Probably You.”21

In an age when governmental denigration has become routinized, it is important to remember that our human rights demand not only protections from the tyrannies of government, but also protections by governmentsagainst the tyrannies of privateers, including those economic powers intent on enhancing their freedom to exploit the public by diminishing the regulatory protections of government.

Regulatory change is a constant process in a large and complex society.  That is why a one-year moratorium on new regulations, passed in the House of Representatives in 1995, seemed so shockingly naive and simplistic, as if the federal government were, or ought to be, a larger version of a small town council.  Public regulations, of course, must be regularly reviewed, revised, and sometimes reduced to reflect changing circumstances, new scientific data, unexpected problems and injustices, and even new ideas on how to regulate with optimal effects (for example, by reducing “command and control” and using a “flexible range of enforcement options,” including market incentives and disincentives.22 or shifting from coercion to persuasion, from rules to principles, in “responsive, regulation”23).  Some public regulations are unnecessary, unenforceable, rigid, dated, and/or dumb.  In addition, a few public regulators–on the local and state scenes in my experience–are blatantly venal or tyrannical, and ought to be purged.  With equal justification, however, government regulations must frequently be strengthened in quality and increased in quantity as public problems make necessary.  In a society of over 250 million people and a great volume of complex national problems, an abundance of public regulations is a necessary condition of living together justly and orderly.

Privatization

Privatization is another norm used to justify the downsizing of government, especially the federal government. It refers to the transferral of public goods and services to the private sector, especially businesses but also charitable organizations in the case of certain welfare functions.

Privatization includes proposals for selling public lands as “government surplus” to raise revenue, reduce the deficit, or balance the budget.  A few advocates, in fact, propose that national parks, forests, and refuges be turned over to private enterprises for management, on the grounds that they can perform these functions more efficiently and responsively than government.  Much of this idea strikes me as the romantic idealization of the Free Marketeers.  It ignores the fact that the major reason why these treasured public lands have been held in public trust is the remembrance of the multitude of ways that commercial enterprises have violated the public interest on both private and public properties.

Proposals for privatization today come occasionally in philosophical garb–for example, the libertarian argument for the supremacy of private property rights.  But mostly, privatization is nothing more than privateering.  It comes as undisguised greed to grab public resources such as timber, water, minerals, and grazing lands at low, publicly subsidized costs.  In a perverse irony in the West, where public lands are often viewed by lessees as their private domains, the Bureau of Land Management is condemned for “federal interference” with the private use of public property.

Much of the argument for privatization in public services seems to assume that the basic question is “efficiency” in production, presumably defined as the lowest cost for a given output.  If that were the issue, it is not at all clear that private enterprise is necessarily, consistently, or even generally more efficient than public enterprise.  That claim for the private sphere is more an ideological judgment than an empirical assessment. The evidence on comparative efficiency is mixed, and oftentimes it is unfair to compare, because public service and profit-making are pursuing significantly different purposes.24  Subsidizing services to low-income citizens, for example, is a normal public function that profit-makers do not normally practice.  In any case, some public agencies have shown the capacities for efficient and productive management, and plenty of private enterprises have distorted the concept of efficiency by externalizing the social and ecological costs of production onto the public to maximize private gain.  Though efficiency is to be welcomed, it is not the only or primary consideration.

Something deeper than any economic criterion is at stake in public goods and services.  Two analysts of federalism, Forrest Chisman and Alan Pifer, point to that deeper answer:

The major issue raised by privatization…is not the issue of efficiency.  It is whether certain services are important enough to the general welfare that the whole nation should take responsibility for providing them and whether provision should be public, open, and accountable to everyone.25

Only public functions can be a responsibility of all and be made accountable to all.  Only government can be the instrument through which we share the benefits and burdens of being a whole people.

Privatization also takes the form of voluntarization in certain welfare functions.  Supposedly, voluntary charitable organizations, such as churches and service agencies, can do a more creative, effective, and efficient job than government in providing a variety of public services–including housing, health care, nutrition, financial aid, education, etc.  The welfare state allegedly has preempted the proper role of private charities, and the time has come for a reversal of responsibilities.  Frankly, this is abnormal nonsense even by the standards of the Christian Right, and for several reasons.

First, many major charities are already functioning as agents of government in the delivery of public services. They are contractual providers, sometimes more accurately described as public charities; substantial portions of their budgets, often more than 50% come from federal and state sources.  Government has not supplanted their services; rather it has supplied substantial resources for them to provide these services.  Thus, federal and state reductions in funding for social services mean that fewer services can be provided through charitable organizations.  These reductions in public dollars are not likely to be replaced by charitable contributions. The major voluntary agencies certainly are not the proponents of voluntarization.  Rather, they are among the prime opponents, recognizing that their capacities to serve are far less than public needs, and harboring no illusions that they can supplant government as the prime providers.  Indeed, a major reason that certain functions of the welfare state arose in the first place is that urgent public needs overwhelmed the resources and coordinative capacities of private providers.  Thus, privatization in social services means increased deprivation for the poor.

Second, welfare functions have little chance of being adequately funded unless the resources are collected by the coercive powers of taxation.  Voluntarization doesn’t take sin seriously.  It gives rise to the problem of the “free rider,” in which substantial numbers of citizens, including often those who owe the most in view of their financial capacities, will not pay their fair share of the public burden unless forced to do so.  The argument that charitable contributions can replace tax revenues is again either moral naiveté or, far more likely, moral cynicism–a dishonest device to scuttle public and private services to the poor.

Third, if charities try to pick up welfare roles that government has been forced to drop, that choice will almost certainly detract from the charities’ capabilities to perform roles that they can do better than government or roles that they alone should play.  In the case of churches, that means a reduction in the resources of money and energy available for counseling, advocacy, and evangelism.  Public irresponsibility will force a shift in private priorities.

Fourth, social welfare problems are responsibilities of the society as a whole, and only a given government as the instrument of that whole society can represent our corporate responsibilities.  On this assumption, it is unjust to expect social institutions, such as churches, that represent only part of the society to fulfill responsibilities that properly belong to the whole, and it is imprudent to assign a responsibility of the whole people to a segment that is not fully accountable to the whole.

Human Rights and Governmental Roles

An overview of the terrible triad reveals that the rationale for the anti-government agenda is flat and defunct. The overview also offers a fine foil against which the values and virtues of government can be more clearly visible.  But a positive case must yet be made for the essential functions of government–particularly for my main focus, the federal government.  What then are the appropriate roles and responsibilities, the size and scope, of government?  What functions properly belong to the federal government?  On what moral grounds can this assignment of responsibilities be justified?

The standard answer to questions about determining federal functions uses the national common good as the main criterion:  The federal government is a cooperative venture among the states and their citizens to confront major national problems.  Reflecting a rationale that is deeply rooted in US history, Theodore Roosevelt asserted:  “The national government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government.”26Thus, the mandates and limits of the federal government depend on a basic test:  what can be defended as a relevant response to significant national needs of the people.  This test is reasonable and important, but it is also jurisdictional rather than substantive.  It does not say anything about the character and content of national needs.  More guidance is needed.

In addition, therefore, I propose a substantive standard for determining the directions of government, one that seems as ethically sensible as it is historically conventional:   Human rights are the measure of governmental goodness.  These rights are the substantive moral norms for determining the responsibilities and roles of government.  They define the purposes and functions, the powers and limits, of the state.  The prime precedent for this connection between human rights and governmental responsibilities is the Declaration of Independence (1776):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

From this perspective, the present national debate about the size and scope of government is not only about issues of money and power, as important as these are, but it is also, though unrecognized, about the moral rights of citizens and the resultant responsibilities of government as the guarantor of rights.  The different responsibilities that the contending parties assign to government are shaped in large measure by the different moral rights of citizens that these parties recognize.  If, for example, one’s emphasis is on the right to protection of private property, the role of government will be conceived as narrow indeed–a security force primarily for the affluent.  The responsibilities of government expand in proportion to the recognized rights of its citizens.  The question of human rights is where the struggle in Washington has been engaged implicitly, and that is precisely where the struggle’s continuation ought to be engaged explicitly.

Human rights are specified standards of social justice.  They are prima facie moral claims to the basic necessities for human well-being, the imperative conditions for expressing human dignity.  Since they apply equally and universally to all humans, these rights have important implications for the international responsibilities of governments, but I will focus here on the implications for national policy.

Human rights entail governmental responsibilities, as well as responsibilities from all individuals and associations in proportion to their powers and resources.  Governments certainly have responsibilities of noninterference with the freedoms of citizens to pursue their rights (negative duties), but they also have responsibilities to provide protections and assistance (positive duties)–that is, the public interventions that all rights, even the noninterference claims, require when deprivations occur.27  Governments, then, as the agents of our common interests, are the representatives of our corporate responsibilities to serve the rights of all citizens and residents.28

      The following categories of human rights are embodied in international covenants, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and are widely accepted in Christian ethics.  They point to a significantly different vision of government than the one implicit in the terrible triad.  We have rights to the satisfaction of the following:

1.  basic biophysical needs, including adequate nutrition, shelter, health care, clothing, and sufficient personal property.  Ordinarily, these so-called subsistence, economic, or welfare rights can be satisfied through a right to labor for a living, but in the absence of that possibility one has a right to social assistance in a responsible society.  No other human rights can be realized adequately, if at all, without the satisfaction of these biophysical rights.29  Thus, basic needs for all have a moral priority over luxuries for some in a just society.  If, moreover, private property at some basic level is a necessary condition of human welfare, then this right stands against the excessive accumulation of property by some to the serious detriment of others, and it stands for adequate private property for all.  Thus, the right to private property is not a conservative principle, as generally assumed by the political Left and Right, but rather a redistributive principle.

2.  physical security, including public protections from murder, torture, rape, theft, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, aggression, etc.  No other rights are secure without the protections of public order–and without the political and economic justice which makes public order possible and legitimate.30

3.  spiritual and moral autonomy, which includes fundamental freedoms for personal decision-making about the commitments, directions, and ultimate values of one’s life.  These primary liberties include the rights of religious freedom and privacy.

4.  mental and cultural development, including freedoms of research and expression, provisions for aesthetic formation, and opportunities for quality education appropriate to one’s capacities and the conditions of the modern world.

5.  full and equal participation in defining and shaping the common good.  This category includes voting rights, and freedoms of speech, press, petition, and association.  Guaranteed democratic procedures are essential means of claiming subsistence, security, and other rights in the face of resistance.

6.  social ground rules for fair treatment and equal consideration.  These include due process rights, equal protection of the laws, and fair tax burdens.

7.  ecological integrity or environmental security as an extension of biophysical needs. Environmental rights include:  the right to protection of the soils, air, waters, and atmosphere from levels of pollution that exceed the safe absorptive capacities of ecological systems; the right to the preservation of biodiversity and the ecosystems on which all life depends; and the right to regulatory protections to ensure just, sustainable, and frugal use of all natural resources.  Since the vitality of socioeconomic systems is grounded in the integrity of ecosystems, human environmental rights are no less important than social, political, and economic rights.

8.  the common good as a right itself and as the precondition of all rights.  The common good is the “ensemble of conditions” that favors the realization of individuals in community; it is the total constellation of human rights fairly distributed, balanced, and blended.31

Government is the defender of justice–and, therefore, a society’s final guarantor of human rights.  The federal government’s responsibility is to secure these rights insofar as they are national needs or compelling national interests.  State and local (city, county, etc.) governments have similar responsibilities appropriate to the needs of their jurisdictions.  To secure these rights, a given society ought to provide its government with sufficient means–the necessary legal authority and the tax revenues.  Indeed, citizens have a right to socially and ecologically responsible governments.  Governments that are not so responsible are not simply political failures; they are in themselves violations of human rights.  If the above listed human rights are defensible, they demand then a federal government that is strong and active enough to match these national needs.

Questions about whether these rights are valid and what they demand in governmental policy and structures are where the public argument must be joined.  Thus, a solid case for progressive government must be grounded finally in a solid case for a full complement of human rights.

Federal Functions

Political ethics obviously entails linking moral norms and public policies.  But the linkage is anything but a straight line.  Too many factual disputes and value conflicts block the way.  Ambiguity increases with each step toward specificity.  Nevertheless, we can outline some federal functions that in general fit coherently with the above listed human rights.  These functions seem to be necessary, or at least very valuable, conditions for the social realization of these rights.  They are roles that no other social unit can do as well, or at all, or as fully effectively without the support of a national government.  These general functions can serve as normative guidelines for designing and evaluating public policies.  Moreover, state, local, and other governments have similar functions, each with adaptations that are relevant to the particular needs of their jurisdictions.

Modern government is a multifunctional phenomenon–in fact, a multiorganizational composite of specialized and not-always-coordinated agencies32 (which is a major reason why attacks on government in general are so absurd).  Thus, a list of federal functions, whether defined normatively or actually, will be long.  The following dozen functions are certainly not exhaustive.  Many readers can cite others or subdivisions of the outlined ones.  The following outline, however, is sufficient to indicate the moral potential of the federal government as the guarantor of its citizens’ human rights.

Federal functions which are imperative or valuable for the realization of human rights in the United States are:

1.  maintaining uniform national standards in all human rights, including nutrition, housing, health care, public welfare, employment safety, education, environmental security, public safety, civil liberties, etc.  The purpose is to provide at least the basic conditions for human dignity to all citizens of the United States, regardless of the economic capacities or the moral sensitivities of their states of residence.  States, of course, can develop higher standards if they choose.  These federal entitlements–a prime target of devolution–require an equitable distribution of benefits among the states through federal assistance.

When biophysical needs are taken seriously, a just society requires some type of welfare state.

2.  Regulating for the national common good.  Public regulations are essential welfare functions, as I discussed at length under deregulation.  They too provide minimal standards of protection for the nation as a whole.  The regulating function, as well as every other function to some degree, entails a variety of federal research roles, from labor statistics to the environmental data-gathering of the US Geological Survey. Regulations must be regularly reviewed and revised for adaptability to public needs.  Particular regulations must be fair and effective, but the total package of public regulations must also be sufficient to match social and ecological problems.  That goal will require more, stronger, and wiser regulations in the federal future.

3.  pending public money in effective response to public needs and with full respect for the standards of frugality.  Just governmental expenditures demand the union of public magnanimity and frugality.  Magnanimity is a full responsiveness to our duties in justice and benevolence, characterized by generous sharing to provide all necessary public goods and services.  It is an important civic virtue today because we are in danger of becoming a nation of skinflints, as an ideology of self-indulgent greed corrupts the common weal and the biggest spenders among us are often the most strident complainants about being “overtaxed.”  Frugality is the careful expenditure of public funds to seek optimal benefit at optimal [sic.] cost. It is motivated by John Calvin’s description of tax revenues, as “almost the very blood of the people…which it would be the harshest inhumanity not to spare.”33

Public anger is rightly directed against wasteful, extravagant, and fraudulent expenditures of public funds. Integrity and credibility demand that these bipartisan problems be treated as intolerable.  But the best way to reduce these problems is not by restricting public revenues or expenditures in general.  These indiscriminate tactics harm valuable programs.  Moreover, cutbacks in themselves do not necessarily reduce or eliminate waste.  Waste reduction doesn’t happen unless waste is specifically targeted; otherwise, it continues or expands as a proportion of expenditures.  Instead, the public must seek specifically honest, efficient, and frugal management of all public resources.  The savings resulting from these practices alone could be considerable and should be channeled into serving public needs magnanimously.

4.  Taxing progressively and sufficiently.  Taxation is as much a question of ethics as economics.  No tax policy is morally neutral, despite the pretenses of some technical experts; all policies assume desirable social and ecological ends and acceptable means.  These public decisions depend on sound empirical assessments, but they are finally moral ju

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