Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Why ‘Small Government’ Isn’t Enough
About a year ago, I generated some controversy around here with a series of threads on something I called “virtue conservatism.” Originally, I was merely looking for a new name for what we now call “social conservatism.” Over the course of the discussion, it became clear that this was about more than just branding. The central idea, however, is that conservatism needs to be about more than just beating back the administrative state. Small government principles are important, particularly in the realm of policy, but our vision needs to be more substantive that. And that broader vision should be evident in our rhetoric and our culture.
After that rather interesting conversation, I distilled some of my thoughts in a longish essay. It got sidetracked several times, and finally made it into print just today! But since the piece was very much inspired by conversations here at Ricochet, I thought I would post it with my thanks, and also invite commentary (or criticism!) from anyone who is interested. The title is: Slaying the Hydra: Can Virtue Heal the American Right?
Here’s the central metaphor, which is entirely Ricochet-inspired:
In Greek mythology, the hydra is a large reptilian beast with multiple serpentine heads. If one head is severed, two more grow in its place. A warrior intent on slaying the hydra would understandably tend to fixate on whichever head was actively threatening to devour him, but ultimately this was not a recipe for victory. In order to destroy the beast, it is necessary to deal with the monster in its totality.
The modern administrative state and our militant secular culture are like two heads of a single hydra. The modern state is a kind of secular church, wherein secular progressives pursue the only kind of fulfillment they think possible for humankind. The size and intrusiveness of the modern state mirror the strength and aggression of our secular culture. But the state also helps to create optimal conditions for the further entrenchment of secular ideals, by undermining natural community and fostering vice. It saps the strength and natural resources of its citizens, until they are finally unable to resist its incursions on their liberty.
In short, the state and its supportive culture are part of a single whole. Neither can be killed while the other lives, and by fixating too wholly on one, we risk leaving the other to build in strength, ultimately paving the way for a resurgence of both.
Published in Culture, Politics
Jamie is correct about the bright line. The fundamental problem of government is to identify its proper role and constrain it to that role. Human ambition being unlimited, any human who gets his hands of the levers of power is going to over-reach and do great damage to his subjects (almost always with the best of intentions and with total conviction in his own altruistic motives). This isn’t an abstract theory. It is an historical fact.
The problem with Ed’s definition of “harm” isn’t just that it’s wrong (it is, but that’s not the problem). The problem is that Ed offers no constraint – not even a theoretical constraint – on the scope of government power. If “harm” is anything Ed thinks it is, then the government can legitimately do anything to avert some harm or other.
Jamie has offered a “bright line” definition of harm that, whether it is “right” or “wrong,” at least has the virtue of doing what it is supposed to do. It places a limitation on the legitimate activities of government. Ed’s definition places no such limitation on government power. Therefore, Ed’s definition adds nothing to our understanding of the problem Jamie has raised. For all the practical impact it has, Ed’s definition had might as well just be some Nietzschian assertion that “might makes right, end of story.”
I thought I remembered the libertarian bright line being either the violation of (properly defined) individual rights or, almost the same thing, the initiation of the use of physical force against another.
Aren’t those less fuzzy than the idea of “harm”? Couldn’t harm, e.g., be construed to include mental anguish, such that I may not permitted to argue in certain tones with certain weak-minded people?
OMG. Just realized you folks might think I was taking a sarcastic jab at some of you. No. Just trying to contrive an example about the kind of people the state might decide needed protection from fierce argument. Violates First Amendment. Proof by contradiction that “harm” could lead to places we would never want it to go.
Owen, I agree. Which is why I don’t personally use the “harm principle” or the “non-aggression principle” to define libertarian philosophy. My own formulation is this: Government coercion is justified only if it is for the purpose of increasing the choices available to individuals, and only if the constraints the government places on individual behavior reduces the constrained individuals’ choices by less than the increased choices which others enjoy as a result of the constraint. For example, a law against theft is justified because it allows people to make free choices about the use and disposition of their own property, and the ability to make such choices (which inures to everyone) far outweighs the limitation on the thief’s freedom to steal.
I am also comfortable with the Founders’ formulation: That governments exist to secure the right of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and therefore any government coercion must serve the purpose of increasing the amount of individual liberty to exercise those rights.
You do realize that all of that, including the Founders distillation, has its philosophical roots in Locke and the harm principle.
Except that “proper role” is just as much in dispute as “harm” or “truth” or “justice” or “maximum utility” or whatever other benchmark you want to employ. Figuring out where to set the line is an inherently political (and unstable) proposition.
Agreed that (some) humans will try to get control of power and use it for their own benefit, whether that helps or hurts everyone else being irrelevant. The founders knew this, but that didn’t prompt them in aggregate to reach for a bright line; they fully expected and agreed that states and cities and towns would exercise a degree of involvement through law that would be considered most unlibertarian today. Instead of bright lines that are always in flux and in dispute anyway, their strategy for constraining government and directing it to productive ends was exactly the same strategy I’ve offered (contrary to your claim that I offer no constraints): charter, participation of the governed, faction, subsidiarity, federalism, balancing of functions, and the ultimate backstop of violence.
But a different formulation could still be an improvement, right? A refinement? (I don’t accept Larry’s formulation … yet. I have to think about it.)
Yes, absolutely. I just think it is a more general and precise way to explain it.
You may be right, I just prefer the simplest distillation as it makes it easier for everyone to follow.
Ed, my objection to your position is not that your line isn’t “bright” enough. It is that your line does not exist at all. Sure, drawing this line is hard. It is the hardest task in all of moral philosophy, in all of ethics, and in all of political science. But the fact that it’s hard is no excuse for throwing your hands in the air and saying “I give up.”
I think I’ve already answered the part about offering no constraints. That’s just incorrect.
Regarding what government can legitimately do: you’re imposing your definition of “legitimate” when it is and will continue to be in dispute. In fact, power can do what it wants. Whether it is right to do so is obviously a political question, else the competing visions fight it out and one is left to do as it pleases.
It also makes it easy for people like Ed to redefine it out of existence.
Locke will be around long after you, Ed and I are dust.
Thank god.
Larry, you’re jumping to conclusions that are just incorrect.
There’s a big difference between picking a line and figuring out how to resolve disputes over where to draw the line. I’ve been discussing the latter and how the winner might be constrained.
Locke will. But his vision of government will remain rare, and tenuous even when it gets a foothold. As Ed points out, most people are not interested in principled limitations on government. They are only interested in getting the power into the hands of someone who agrees with them. After that, it’s “hoist the Jolly Roger!”
It is only later that people realize that no matter how “noble” the goals of the revolution were supposed to be, it turns out that Stalin was the wrong guy to put in charge. And it doesn’t matter who you put in charge, because the principle that power corrupts always applies.
All the more reason for a bright line to restrain government.
That’s hardly true of my definition of harm (which I don’t have carefully worded and at the ready).
However, with slight modification to “might makes operative”, I’d say that is undeniable. “Right” is an inherently subjective term in practice; so how we determine which concept of “right” will guide the government part of civil society is of immense practical importance and really the only thing that could prevent might making right.
I don’t expect that constraint consisting of a philosophical decision matrix will be of much use; I’m much more interested in procedural and structural constraints in which might/majority can exercise it’s own brand of legitimacy without causing too much damage.
What am I redefining? You can have your concept of harm – but it is not the only one available.
That’s not quite what I pointed out. I make no assessment of how many people are interested in limitations on government, whether principled or procedural. I just don’t know, and I suspect that it ebbs and flows. Also, there’s a range of ground between demanding principled limits and eager to use government to screw everyone else.
Without the principle all of the procedural limitations won’t matter. Washington could have been crowned King. Washington could have served more than two terms. He willingly gave up his power because of principle – and he set the principled tone for the next 150 years.
The founders put in a number of procedural limitations on government – it hasn’t stopped the explosion of our governments size, reach and power one iota. Why? Because we lack the principles the founding generation so cherished.
Ed,
I seriously mean no disrespect, but you are not actually participating in the discussion that the rest of us are having. You offer no principle limiting the legitimate use of government power. All you talk about is the mechanism for seizing power. We all know the mechanisms. Starting with war. That is not the subject that the rest of us are talking about.
The point is, once someone has seized power they are either guided by principled constraints on how they use that power, or they believe it is fine to do whatever they think is right. Our current President is a good example of the latter category. He sees constraints on his power as being just an annoyance. Here he is, trying to save the world, and that pesky Constitution keeps getting in his way.
Unprincipled power is raw power – nothing more. So if you don’t want to be an advocate of raw power, then find yourself a limitation that you can believe in, and fight for it.
I’m not worried about someone who wants to use government to “screw everyone else.” I’m worried about someone who wants to use government to “help everyone else.” As Reagan said, the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
We’re on this subject because many of us understand Rachel to be just such a person, and her “virtue politics” to be just such a philosophy.
I’m not arguing that principle is irrelevant. I’m arguing that there was, is, and will be conflict over which principles are “correct”.
Make no mistake though: I don’t believe either procedure or principle can guarantee anything. I’m just arguing that the common structure encompassing majority, dissent, and conflict is a bit more solid than ideas. Otherwise, the founders were right that a virtuous citizenry is required for any experiment in self government to work.
We were talking about how government is constrained and the relative differences between libertarian, conservative, and progressive. Also, we were talking about how harm doesn’t have to mean what libertarians mean by it and the result isn’t automatic tyranny and raw power. Part of having a broader view of harm and avoiding tyranny is to be a fanatic for procedures and structure that constrain majority/power while giving it some space to act with the practical legitimacy it has. Otherwise the progressives aren’t interested in constraint, only in heaven on earth.
As I pointed out earlier, sometimes the line between imposing virtue and protecting from vice is blurred, but there is a line nonetheless. That, and when Rachel says:
I take her to mean restoration of local power and and protection from vice on the government side and preaching virtue on the cultural side. The thing is that vice and virtue are operationally subjective, so let individuals have their say in their communities. Las Vegas doesn’t view gambling as a critical vice? Great, but there’s nothing wrong with some other city viewing it that way and acting on it.
Rachel never says exactly what she means, which leaves you optimistic, and me suspicious.
Ed G: I hope you realize that the concept of ‘social harm’ or ‘societal’ harm aligns you perfectly with progressives.
We are social animals. In that sense, everything we do affects someone else. If I buy a new XBox, that’s money that my kid won’t be getting when I die. If I don’t mow my lawn, I subtly damage the view and maybe even the property values of my neighbors. Every time I drive on a road I am contributing to traffic congestion.
We have a system for adjudicating these kinds of social complaints: Tort law. If I am unduly impacting you, you can sue me for damages. We have contract law to allow people to work in proximity or together under voluntary constraint.
One of the reasons we relegate these types of interactions to the tort system and don’t criminalize them is precisely because there are no bright lines once you get into ‘social’ effects. Every case is unique, every dispute has a different point of view.
Once you allow the nose of the government regulators into these areas, there are functionally no limits on state power. Obamacare was justified using this type of logic. So are bans on smoking, soft drinks, guns…
Underlying this is the ‘communitarian’ school of thought, which says that first and foremost we are members of a social collective – a collective which has the right to impose restrictions on our behaviour not because we have directly harmed someone, but because the government thinks the collective will be better off if we don’t engage in that behaviour.
That’s where the bright line lives. Either an individual is free to live his or her own life and not have to justify it to anyone else so long as they are not injuring others, or ‘society’ or the collective has primacy, in which case the collective has the power to micro-manage your life to improve the health of the ‘common good’.
In your case, the common good is the moral health of society. In the Progressive’s case, it’s the re-adjustment of what they see as power and financial imbalances due to differences in privilege. What you have in common is that you both think that a valid role of the state is to limit the freedom of individuals minding their own business, in order to bring about a better world.
I never thought I’d have to justify individual rights on a conservative message board, but I guess this is a strange year.
Quite right. No difference between me and a progressive. Except for the other differences that I’ve talked about in this thread.
I disagree. There are many “functional” limits. I think you’re talking about substantive or philosophical limits.
This contradiction (it’s a contradiction as I see it, not as they see it) has always been part of conservatism. They favor individualism, unless they fear some damage to the collective from porn, from drugs, from something. Then they are collectivists.
I don’t know if the communitarian school as you describe it is the only option. I’m pretty sure it’s not. I’m also pretty sure that the standards of “direct harm” or “better off” are not the only options.
The fact is that we are part of a social collective whether it’s called civil society or community or whatever. We are part of different social collectives and some social collectives themselves are part of larger collectives. Family, neighborhood, church, city, county, state, nation. These collectives do have interests distinct from the interests of any particular member but they aren’t wholly alien to the constituent members.
While I believe that individuals have an inherent dignity and worth, I also believe that majority has a legitimacy grounded in practicality and reality. Of course there’s tension between these truths, but that’s why the political process and structure are so important. Otherwise my only options are retreat or violence.