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Government: More or Less?

Government Is Good
By Douglas J. Amy

When was the last time you heard someone say something positive about government? Most of what we hear about this institution is relentlessly negative. The news media focus almost exclusively on the problems of government—the scandals, the corruption, the policy fiascos. Government programs that work well are not considered news. news is when the Pentagon spends $400 for a toilet seat, or when a member of Congress is discovered to be a closet homosexual.

On top of this, the idea that “government is bad” has become one of the major themes of the republican Party. ever since ronald reagan quipped, “Government isn’t the solution, it is the problem,” conservatives have used every opportunity to disparage and demonize government. They are constantly telling us how awful it is: the enormous amount of waste, the poor service we get from bureaucrats, and the ever-increasing size of the public sector.

However, these negative images of government are often based more on myth than reality. Many of the common criticisms leveled at government are highly exaggerated, misleading, or simply wrong. For example, studies have found that most government bureaucracies are actually quite efficient, with a level of waste of only 2–3 percent. and surveys show that the public gives high marks to government employees for the services they provide—on a par with the ratings for private-sector services. also, if we look at the size of government as a portion of our gross domestic product—a common way to measure the size of the public sector—we see that government has hardly grown in the last thirty years. In 1976, all government spending made up 32.1 percent of GdP, and in 2006 it amounted to only 31.8 percent. In reality, then, government is not nearly as bad as it is often portrayed.

More important, we rarely hear about all the good being done by a myriad of government programs. Consider just a few of the beneficial things that our local, state, and federal governments are doing for us every day: preventing economic depressions, putting out fires, providing roads, ensuring air safety, eliminating horrible diseases like polio and smallpox, repairing bridges, punishing criminals, ensuring drinkable water, enforcing contracts, protecting abused children, inspecting restaurants, predicting the weather, guarding our national security, providing unemployment insurance, protecting our bank deposits, funding public colleges and universities, zoning to protect neighborhoods, providing parks and recreation, taking care of the poor, treating our sewage, subsidizing childcare, righting civil wrongs, ensuring the safety of new construction, and regulating financial markets.

And there is more. our taxes are paying for programs that provide retirement security, prevent business abuses, promote food safety, care for veterans, sponsor stunning scientific breakthroughs, ensure breathable air, feed the hungry, fund libraries, recall unsafe products, ensure voting rights, dispense justice, educate our children, reduce workplace injuries and deaths, recycle our waste, prevent discrimination, respond to disasters and emergencies, prevent crime, inspect day-care centers, keep bad cars and drivers off the roads, rescue endangered species, provide money for college, subsidize the arts, ensure the safety of drugs, care for the elderly, and on and on.

Far from being a scourge on society, government is a valuable and positive force in the life of every american. democratic government is what allows us to pool our resources and to act collectively to address the serious social, economic, and environmental problems that we are unable to deal with as individuals. The public sector is also how we provide for essential human needs that are neglected by the market—such as a clean air and water, safe workplaces, and accessible healthcare. What’s more, government serves as an essential instrument of moral action—a way for us to rectify injustices, eliminate suffering, and care for each other. In short, democratic government is one of the main ways we work together to pursue the common good and make the world a better place.

This is not to deny that american government has its problems. There are incidents of waste, some regulations are poorly designed, and some politicians abuse their power. also, our government is certainly not as democratic and accountable as it could be, and special interests have way too much political power. such problems need to be fixed, and many groups are working for needed reforms. nonetheless, whatever drawbacks this institution has right now are far outweighed by the enormous benefits that we all enjoy from a vast array of public-sector programs.

So what difference does it make that many americans continue to believe mistakenly that government is bad for them? Plenty. The myth that government is bad greatly aids conservative attacks on the public sector. It makes people more likely to support republican efforts to slash taxes, neglect vital social programs, and undermine needed environmental, consumer, and workplace regulations.

Instead of less government, in many areas we actually need more government. We can see what we are missing if we compare our governmental efforts to those of many western european democracies that have larger and better-funded public sectors. studies show that because of our relatively anemic public sector, americans are more likely than european citizens to lack healthcare coverage, to be poor, to drive on dangerous roads, to breathe dirty air, to drink less-safe water, to have less access to good public transportation, and to be less economically secure. Less government here also means that we have less-affordable day care, higher infant mortality, more job-related injuries, less affordable housing, and a lower life expectancy.

So there is a great deal at stake in how we view government. americans need to adopt a more realistic view of this institution, a view that acknowledges the overwhelmingly positive role that government plays in our society. When conservatives are able to hamstring and reduce government, they are limiting our ability to protect our families from harm and improve all of our lives. We need to resist mindless government bashing and recognize that government is one of our best tools for making the world a better place.

Douglas J. Amy is professor of politics at MHC.

Learn More: Amy's views are more extensively presented at www.governmentisgood. com.

• “For those who want more government, the question is: how high does government spending have to get before you will be happy?” –MHC economics professor James E. Hartley

Limited Government Is Good
By James E. Hartley

Sadly, all too often people demonize conservatives for arguing against big government without bothering to find out why exactly it is that conservatives would want to shrink the size of government. One is left with the impression that conservatives are a rather nasty group who hate healthy, happy children and polar bears.

Is government good? Framed that way, the question is not one that can be answered. By “government,” do we mean the provider of the u.s. Marines and the CIA, or do we mean the subsidizer of the national Peanut Festival Fairgrounds? In asking if government is good, do we mean the Bush administration? or the Clinton administration? Having the debate at this level is perhaps a nice parlor game, but not terribly illuminating.

If we want to understand conservatives’ arguments about government, we need to think about the american experiment itself. Governments that do too much are oppressive. That observation was, of course, at the heart of the american revolution. america was designed to be a place where government was limited, where government had an important role to play, but was not meant to be the solution to all social problems.

As Michael novak details in The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, the Founding Fathers deliberately checked the reach of government by designing a society in which power was spread among three different groups. one part of society, what novak calls the moral-cultural order, was to be dominated by religious and intellectual leaders. This arena was marked by freedom of speech and assembly and the lack of an official state church. The power of the leaders in this realm of society was simply persuasion. set against that was to be an economic order marked by free enterprise based on voluntary exchange. again the only power the leaders in this realm had was the ability to try to convince someone to give them money in exchange for their time, ideas, or products. Thirdly, there was the political order marked by a government with limited power and democratic elections.

The purpose of setting up a society with power divided in this way was to prevent any one group from trampling on the rights of others. no longer would there be a state church with the power of law; no longer would feudal lords regulate every aspect of life. and, let us be honest here: this societal system has produced amazing results. The average american today enjoys more freedom and greater material prosperity than anyone before in history.

But a strange thing has happened during the american experiment’s triumphal march. a portion of the society has become hostile to the very experiment itself. not content to let society as a whole work out the inherent conflicts that arise between large numbers of people, these discontented people have decided to enlarge the reach of government as a means of compelling others to bend to their will. Imagine there is a large social problem that is affecting millions of americans. Who should solve the problem? For some members of our society, the answer is obvious: the government should solve the problem—no matter what the problem is.

The result of this rush to enhance the reach of government has been an expansion of the size of government into every aspect of society. If you do not like the way something is going, then pass a law changing it. regulate everything. tax heavily. spend freely. and if the result of this reach of government is a diminishment of the power of the leaders in the moral-cultural and economic orders, then so much the better.

Conservatives oppose this idea that governments should be all-powerful. Conservatives believe that government has a proper role to play in a society, but that any attempt by the government to reach beyond that role is inherently despotic. despite the fantasies of anarchists, governments are vitally necessary for a well-functioning society. Militaries and police forces, justice systems, roads, protections of fundamental rights—these are the things that governments are necessary to provide. does anyone want to live in a society that does not have a law against murder, enforced by a police department and trial by jury? The problem with government comes when the political order encroaches on the realms better left to the free-enterprise system or the moral-cultural order.

There is great room for debate on the proper role of government; that is another one of the beautiful things about the american experiment. as I said at the outset, sadly, this point is all too often lost in discussions about conservatives. I like happy kids and I like polar bears; that is not the issue. The issue is simply how we can best get those happy kids. In some ways we need more government to do so (a better national intelligence service, updated air Force fighter planes); in other ways we need less government (breaking the public-school monopoly, less “nanny-state” style regulation). The question is not simply more versus less government; the real question is whether we can restore government to its proper function in the american political and social order. and restoring it to its proper role will mean a much smaller government than the one we see today.

Here is the quick test: do we really want the u.s. federal government spending as much as it did at the high point of Fdr’s new deal? Before the start of World War II, u.s. federal government spending rose to almost 10 percent of total gross domestic product. today that number is a little over 20 percent. Perhaps Fdr was a conservative too? and that’s just federal government spending; if we add state and local government spending, the total is over 30 percent. so, for those who want more government, the question is: how high does government spending have to get before you will be happy? If two-thirds is too much, how large a percentage of a paycheck will you let the average american keep?

James E. Hartley is professor of economics at MHC. His list of related resources is at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/hartley.

Photos by Ben Barnhart

Learn More:

Further Reading on Conservative Views About Government (and Everything Else)

Note: This information was provided and annotated by James E. Hartley, MHC professor of economics in connection with his essay “Limited Government is Good.”

As I noted in the essay, understanding conservative views on government requires understanding the broader conservative views on society as a whole. As a result, not all of the following are centered on the narrow subject of the size of government.

Books

• Charles Murray, Losing Ground and In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government
      Losing Ground is the classic work describing the failings of the welfare state. In Pursuit is a fun book full of thought experiments pondering the ideal government.
• George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: Since 1945
      The authoritative discussion of the development of the modern conservative mind (For the earlier history of conservatives from Edmund Burke to T. S. Eliot, see Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind.)
• Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square
      A good starting point for all discussions of the relationship of religion and democracy in the modern United States
• Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
      This book is the best description of the vision of democratic capitalism as a social system.
• Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and Hooking Up
      Wolfe is probably the most perceptive analyst of American culture, and all of his work has a conservative undertone to it. These books have interesting analyses of the cultural divide that drives the current debate on government. Hooking Up is of uneven quality, but both the title essay and “In the Land of the Rococo Marxists” are very good.

Journals

• National Review
  This is the conservative standard bearer. It is run by a younger crowd than in the old Buckley days, but it is probably still the center of the conservative movement. (Naturally, the editors of The Weekly Standard may disagree.) (The National Review website www.nationalreview.com is also good.)
• First Things
  Excellent discussions of the relation of religion and public life
• The New Criterion
  For those who want to read about the cultural side of conservatism
• The Wall Street Journal editorial page
   The Wall Street Journal has two sets of editors—one for the news pages, and one for the editorial pages. The editorial page is a very lively place with a range of conservative (and sometimes liberal) views on just about everything. Also, the Friday and Saturday issues have whole sections devoted to cultural issues.