Article in First Things titled The Good of Government by Roger Scruton.
I'm tired tonight and have taken to pasting large parts of the article without further comment. I think the part about modern welfare stripping people of their accountability to their fellow citizens is spot on and is a theme I hammer away at under the term 'enabling.' Liberal policies are destructive on this front and will continue to be so until people who vote for it wise up. North American liberals are repeating the same mistakes as their European counterparts. Only they don't see or admit it because they've convinced themselves they're rational and 'live in reality.' In their minds perhaps, but to the rest of us it's hideous social engineering.
Anyway. I think he's off on some parts. For example, no clue what ""the fundamental human need for government" means.
"...In other words, in our tradition, government and freedom have a single source, which is the human disposition to hold each other to account for what we do. No free society can come into being without the exercise of this disposition, and the freedom that Americans rightly cherish in their heritage is simply the other side of the American habit of recognizing their accountability toward others. Americans, faced with a local emergency, combine with their neighbors to address it, while Europeans sit around helplessly until the servants of the state arrive. That is the kind of thing we have in mind when we describe this country as the “land of the free.” We don’t mean a land without government; we mean a land with this kind of government—the kind that springs up spontaneously between individuals who feel accountable to each other...."
...When conservatives grumble against government it is against government that seems to them to be imposed from outside, like the government of an occupying power. That was the kind of government that grew in Europe under communism, and which is growing again under the European Union—softer, gentler, perhaps, but also unaccountable. And it is easy to think that a similarly alien form of government is growing in America, as a result of the liberal policy of regimenting the American people according to moral beliefs that are to a certain measure alien, leading them to denounce government tout court. But this would be a mistake, not just about the fundamental human need for government, but also about the American situation as compared with Europe. And because it is a mistake that so many conservatives make, it is time to warn against it..."
"...The business of conservatives is to criticize the ones who are misusing government, and who seek to extend its remit beyond the limits that the rest of us spontaneously recognize. Conservatism should be a defense of government against its abuse by liberals."
"...This cause has been damaged by the failure of many conservatives to understand the true meaning of the welfare state. During the twentieth century it became clear that many matters not previously considered by the political process had arrived on the public agenda. Politicians began to recognize that if government is to enjoy the consent of those who gain no comparative advantage from their social membership, it must offer some kind of quid pro quo. This became apparent in the two world wars, when people from all classes of society were required to fight and if necessary to die. Why should they do this, if membership in the society for which they risked their lives had brought them no evident advantages? The fundamental principle was therefore widely accepted that the state has a responsibility for the welfare of its more needy citizens. This principle is merely the full-scale version of the belief adhered to by all small societies, that people should be cared for by the community when they are unable to care for themselves.
The emergence of the welfare state was therefore a more or less inevitable result of popular democracy under the impact of total war. If the welfare state has become controversial in recent times it is not because it is a departure from some natural idea of government. It is rather because it has expanded in a way that undermines its own legitimacy. As we know from both the American and the European examples, welfare policies may lead to the creation of a socially dysfunctional underclass. Sustained without work or responsibilities from generation to generation, people lose the habit of accounting to others, turn their backs on freedom, and become locked in social pathologies that undermine the cohesion of society."
That result is the opposite of the one intended, and came about in part because of the liberal mind-set, which believes that only the wealthy are accountable, since only they are truly free. The poor, the indigent, and the vulnerable are, on the liberal view, inherently blameless, and nothing bad that arises from their conduct can really be laid at their door. They are not responsible for their lives, since they have not been “empowered” to be responsible. Responsibility for their condition lies with the state. The only question is what more the state should do for them, in order to remedy the defects of which state benevolence is in part the cause.
But that way of seeing things expresses a false conception of government. The responsibilities exercised by government are rooted in the accountability of citizens. When government creates an unaccountable class it exceeds its remit, by undermining the relation on which its own legitimacy depends.
The liberal mind-set has therefore led to a conception of government that conservatives view with deep suspicion. In the liberal worldview—and you see this magisterially embodied in the philosophy of John Rawls—the state exists in order to allocate the social product. The rich are not really rich, because they don’t own that stuff. All goods, in liberal eyes, are unowned until distributed. And the state distributes the goods according to a principle of fairness that takes no account of the moral legacy of our free agreements or of the moral effects of a state-subsidized underclass.
(For the record, I fall into this category. Liberal orthodoxy has become too extreme for my taste)
On the liberal view, therefore, government is the art of seizing and then redistributing the good things to which all citizens have a claim. (This may seem hard on the rich, but in fact it is psychologically convenient for them, since it removes the obligation to account for their wealth.) On this view government is not the expression of a preexisting social order shaped by our free agreements and our natural disposition to hold our neighbor to account. It is the creator and manager of a social order framed according to its ruling doctrine of fairness and imposed on the people by a series of top-down decrees. Wherever this liberal conception prevails, government increases its power, while losing its inner authority. It becomes the “market-state” of Philip Bobbitt, which offers a deal to its citizens in return for their taxes, and demands no loyalty or obedience beyond a respect for the agreed terms of the deal.
"But such a state no longer embodies the ethos of a nation, and no longer commands any loyalty beyond the loyalty sought by the average chain store. As in the social democracies of Europe, public displays of patriotism, of shared allegiance and pride in the country and its history, dwindle to a few desultory spasms, and the political class as a whole begins to be looked upon with sarcasm and contempt. Government ceases to be ours and becomes theirs—the property of the anonymous bureaucracy on which we all nevertheless depend for our creature comforts...."
"...In other words, ordinary Americans have a conception of government that is not only natural, but at variance with the liberal idea of the state as a redistributive machine. In attacking the liberal idea, conservatives should make clear that they are reaffirming a real and natural alternative. They are defending government as an expression in symbolic and authoritative forms of our deep accountability to each other"
"This does not mean that conservatives are wedded to some libertarian conception of the minimal state. The growth of modern societies has created social needs that the old patterns of free association are no longer able to satisfy. But the correct response is not to forbid the state from intruding into the areas of welfare, health care, education, and the rest, but to limit its contribution to the point where citizens’ initiatives can once again take the lead. Conservatives want a society guided by public spirit. But public spirit grows only among people who are free to act on it, and to take pleasure in the result.
Yet, this is the libertarian position. Honestly, I don't see much of a difference here between what he's advocating for conservatives and libertarians. In the end, it's classical liberalism.
The problem with this article is he's taking to task one strand of conservatives (Tea Party, Limbaugh etc.) but ignores the others (Soccons and RINO's for example) who actually have little or no problem with big government. He further conflates 'voluntary association' with 'government.' Not the same. One is free, the other is coerced action.
I'm tired tonight and have taken to pasting large parts of the article without further comment. I think the part about modern welfare stripping people of their accountability to their fellow citizens is spot on and is a theme I hammer away at under the term 'enabling.' Liberal policies are destructive on this front and will continue to be so until people who vote for it wise up. North American liberals are repeating the same mistakes as their European counterparts. Only they don't see or admit it because they've convinced themselves they're rational and 'live in reality.' In their minds perhaps, but to the rest of us it's hideous social engineering.
Anyway. I think he's off on some parts. For example, no clue what ""the fundamental human need for government" means.
"...In other words, in our tradition, government and freedom have a single source, which is the human disposition to hold each other to account for what we do. No free society can come into being without the exercise of this disposition, and the freedom that Americans rightly cherish in their heritage is simply the other side of the American habit of recognizing their accountability toward others. Americans, faced with a local emergency, combine with their neighbors to address it, while Europeans sit around helplessly until the servants of the state arrive. That is the kind of thing we have in mind when we describe this country as the “land of the free.” We don’t mean a land without government; we mean a land with this kind of government—the kind that springs up spontaneously between individuals who feel accountable to each other...."
...When conservatives grumble against government it is against government that seems to them to be imposed from outside, like the government of an occupying power. That was the kind of government that grew in Europe under communism, and which is growing again under the European Union—softer, gentler, perhaps, but also unaccountable. And it is easy to think that a similarly alien form of government is growing in America, as a result of the liberal policy of regimenting the American people according to moral beliefs that are to a certain measure alien, leading them to denounce government tout court. But this would be a mistake, not just about the fundamental human need for government, but also about the American situation as compared with Europe. And because it is a mistake that so many conservatives make, it is time to warn against it..."
"...The business of conservatives is to criticize the ones who are misusing government, and who seek to extend its remit beyond the limits that the rest of us spontaneously recognize. Conservatism should be a defense of government against its abuse by liberals."
"...This cause has been damaged by the failure of many conservatives to understand the true meaning of the welfare state. During the twentieth century it became clear that many matters not previously considered by the political process had arrived on the public agenda. Politicians began to recognize that if government is to enjoy the consent of those who gain no comparative advantage from their social membership, it must offer some kind of quid pro quo. This became apparent in the two world wars, when people from all classes of society were required to fight and if necessary to die. Why should they do this, if membership in the society for which they risked their lives had brought them no evident advantages? The fundamental principle was therefore widely accepted that the state has a responsibility for the welfare of its more needy citizens. This principle is merely the full-scale version of the belief adhered to by all small societies, that people should be cared for by the community when they are unable to care for themselves.
The emergence of the welfare state was therefore a more or less inevitable result of popular democracy under the impact of total war. If the welfare state has become controversial in recent times it is not because it is a departure from some natural idea of government. It is rather because it has expanded in a way that undermines its own legitimacy. As we know from both the American and the European examples, welfare policies may lead to the creation of a socially dysfunctional underclass. Sustained without work or responsibilities from generation to generation, people lose the habit of accounting to others, turn their backs on freedom, and become locked in social pathologies that undermine the cohesion of society."
That result is the opposite of the one intended, and came about in part because of the liberal mind-set, which believes that only the wealthy are accountable, since only they are truly free. The poor, the indigent, and the vulnerable are, on the liberal view, inherently blameless, and nothing bad that arises from their conduct can really be laid at their door. They are not responsible for their lives, since they have not been “empowered” to be responsible. Responsibility for their condition lies with the state. The only question is what more the state should do for them, in order to remedy the defects of which state benevolence is in part the cause.
But that way of seeing things expresses a false conception of government. The responsibilities exercised by government are rooted in the accountability of citizens. When government creates an unaccountable class it exceeds its remit, by undermining the relation on which its own legitimacy depends.
The liberal mind-set has therefore led to a conception of government that conservatives view with deep suspicion. In the liberal worldview—and you see this magisterially embodied in the philosophy of John Rawls—the state exists in order to allocate the social product. The rich are not really rich, because they don’t own that stuff. All goods, in liberal eyes, are unowned until distributed. And the state distributes the goods according to a principle of fairness that takes no account of the moral legacy of our free agreements or of the moral effects of a state-subsidized underclass.
(For the record, I fall into this category. Liberal orthodoxy has become too extreme for my taste)
On the liberal view, therefore, government is the art of seizing and then redistributing the good things to which all citizens have a claim. (This may seem hard on the rich, but in fact it is psychologically convenient for them, since it removes the obligation to account for their wealth.) On this view government is not the expression of a preexisting social order shaped by our free agreements and our natural disposition to hold our neighbor to account. It is the creator and manager of a social order framed according to its ruling doctrine of fairness and imposed on the people by a series of top-down decrees. Wherever this liberal conception prevails, government increases its power, while losing its inner authority. It becomes the “market-state” of Philip Bobbitt, which offers a deal to its citizens in return for their taxes, and demands no loyalty or obedience beyond a respect for the agreed terms of the deal.
"But such a state no longer embodies the ethos of a nation, and no longer commands any loyalty beyond the loyalty sought by the average chain store. As in the social democracies of Europe, public displays of patriotism, of shared allegiance and pride in the country and its history, dwindle to a few desultory spasms, and the political class as a whole begins to be looked upon with sarcasm and contempt. Government ceases to be ours and becomes theirs—the property of the anonymous bureaucracy on which we all nevertheless depend for our creature comforts...."
"...In other words, ordinary Americans have a conception of government that is not only natural, but at variance with the liberal idea of the state as a redistributive machine. In attacking the liberal idea, conservatives should make clear that they are reaffirming a real and natural alternative. They are defending government as an expression in symbolic and authoritative forms of our deep accountability to each other"
"This does not mean that conservatives are wedded to some libertarian conception of the minimal state. The growth of modern societies has created social needs that the old patterns of free association are no longer able to satisfy. But the correct response is not to forbid the state from intruding into the areas of welfare, health care, education, and the rest, but to limit its contribution to the point where citizens’ initiatives can once again take the lead. Conservatives want a society guided by public spirit. But public spirit grows only among people who are free to act on it, and to take pleasure in the result.
Yet, this is the libertarian position. Honestly, I don't see much of a difference here between what he's advocating for conservatives and libertarians. In the end, it's classical liberalism.
The problem with this article is he's taking to task one strand of conservatives (Tea Party, Limbaugh etc.) but ignores the others (Soccons and RINO's for example) who actually have little or no problem with big government. He further conflates 'voluntary association' with 'government.' Not the same. One is free, the other is coerced action.
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