Chapter 6. Government In A Liberal Society

CHAPTER SIX

GOVERNMENT IN A LIBERAL SOCIETY

ONE OF THE MOST perplexing problems of the ages seems to have been that of finding the proper place of government in society.

Like any of the powers in the physical world, government is at once a power for good and a power for evil. Considerable success has attended man’s efforts to use wisely the power contained in coal, oil, and the waterfalls. But the power of government in social affairs, like the newly developed atomic power in the physical world, still is an untamed and unharnessed force of great danger; and the supreme danger of our time is that these two forces may be combined somewhere in the world — even in our own country — as a force for evil.

The place of government as an agency empowered to intercede in the affairs of individuals may be thought of in the same way as the right of a person to own private property. In both instances there are limits to the scope of rights. A person’s rights to private property are specific, clearly identified and limited — which is precisely the reason for the establishing of rights to private property. Similarly with government; to concede that there is a purpose in having a government with certain powers is not to concede that the scope of governmental power over the affairs of individuals should be all-inclusive, or that one power justifies another.

Government is a legalized entity. To view government aside from the persons who comprise it and aside from the personal powers they hold is to view an empty shell — or perhaps more accurately, it is to view “nothing wrapped in nothingness.” Thus it follows without exception that any power of government means, in reality, that certain persons are empowered to do something to certain other persons. It cannot be otherwise. In judging the propriety of any specific issue of governmental power, an aid in answering it might be to reformulate the question as follows: Is it proper for this person (or persons) to do this thing to this other person (or persons)?

Government is, by definition, design and intent, an agency engaged in force. It is not necessary, for instance, to empower government to decree that the citizens shall eat when they are hungry, or sing and be thankful when they are happy, or to do any of the innumerable other things that free individuals do voluntarily. Government is engaged in issuing laws and decrees, and in their enforcement. Government conducts “war” on outsiders and “law enforcement” on insiders. Its purpose and operation is well characterized by the statement: “There ought to be a law….” Its operations involve force or the threat of force against certain persons, thus violating the liberty of those persons.

As is well known in our time, a government may be totally tyrannical. An all-powerful government, wherein all the citizens are under the heel of a dictator, allows no liberty to anyone except the dictator himself. It has been said that the authoritarian society is one wherein everything not prohibited is compulsory. The dictator may, of course, grant temporary privileges to some in the same manner as a prison warden grants privileges to a “trusty.”

Based on all that has been said, one might easily conclude that government is an entirely negative force so far as liberty is concerned. He might conclude that anarchy — the complete absence of government — would be the ideal society, and that liberty would be complete under anarchy. That would be true if all persons were perfect. But they are not. With human frailties as they are, anarchy affords an opportunity for certain powerful and tyrannical individuals to enslave their fellow men, to the extent of their power to gain and keep control over others. So some degree of governmental function — or its equivalent performed in some other way — is necessary if liberty is to be at a maximum; violators of liberty must be restrained so that the rights of liberty will be protected for those who respect them and play the game of society according to the rules of liberalism.

Thus at one extreme the absence of government allows anarchy to rob the people of their liberty, whereas at the other extreme the government itself becomes the robber of liberty. The task in a liberal society, therefore, is to find that point where all the people will enjoy the greatest possible degree of liberty. It will allow full enjoyment of liberty by all who refrain from going beyond their rights and imposing on the liberty of others. Those who violate this trust of rights under liberty, and who destroy the liberty of others in addition, shall be forced as a penalty for their avarice to give up their own liberty, in whole or in part, depending on their crime against liberty.

In the liberal society, any coercive power is viewed with suspicion, whether its growth has been attained in the form of business monopolies, labor monopolies or government — which by its very nature is coercive and monopolistic. To government should be delegated, of course, the powers necessary to preserve a maximum of liberty under limited, precise law. Up to that point, government is an instrument that increases liberty throughout society; beyond that point, government reduces the liberty of the people.

A simple case may serve to illustrate the possible effects of government on liberty. Assume a society of two persons. One has enslaved the other, so that there is an average of 50 per cent slavery and 50 per cent liberty in that society .¹ Now assume that the slaveholder somehow becomes convinced that the slave should be freed, and voluntarily frees him, thus allowing the society to operate so that the liberty of neither of the persons is curbed in any degree; the level of liberty would then rise to 100 per cent . If, however, it should be necessary by force of government to restrict the liberty of the former slaveholder by 10 per cent in order to restrain him from imposing on his fellow countryman, the average level of liberty would be 95 per cent — and under that assumption a 95 per cent liberty would be the maximum attainable in that society. The government, if it should exceed its proper scope and functions, might further reduce the average level of liberty unnecessarily to 90 per cent, 80 per cent,…, 0 per cent.

Government may then serve as an agency to maintain liberty at the highest point possible, or it may restrict liberty even to the point of its near-complete destruction.

The definition of liberty as it applies to a society of persons might be restated as follows: A liberal society is one in which, with equality under law for all persons, each person can do most nearly that which is his wish according to his wisdom and conscience.

Under a government consistent with liberalism, the maximum of personal liberty that is attainable depends on the degree of human frailties; the persons who commit the crimes against liberty are the ones compelled to pay the penalty, as with all justice. A government of liberalism, be it noted with emphasis, is not one whose officials and employees are dined, wined and eulogized for “statesmanship” as a reward for having contributed to the destruction of liberty!

¹ The term slavery will be used in the ensuing sections as the antonym for liberty. It is a shocking word to most of us, but it must be admitted that the opposite of liberty is a shocking condition.

In visualizing slavery in terms of a perspiring slave, toiling in chains under the lash of a master’s whip while bloodhounds in the background guard against his escape, it should be noted that the form of slavery of which this discussion will speak as the problem of our day is slavery even in the absence of the whip and the bloodhounds. It is more subtle and inconspicuous than the older form. This newer form of slavery may be present or absent in varying degrees, but it is still slavery in the essential meaning of that word — the opposite of liberty and freedom.

So the word slavery, with all its frightening qualities, seems best to fit the condition being discussed.