Chapter XXVII. Economic Functions Of Government.
Governmental limits.—All society recognizes certain universal wants and the necessity of meeting these with essential order and the best economy. These universal wants enforce the organization of society under some form of government. Such an organization grows out of the necessity rather than the will of humanity. Hence government, local or more general, is the direct effort of individuals in society for the general welfare. Usually the best test of general welfare is the assent of the majority of mature and intelligent members of the community. In the history of the world, however, the importance of the object to be gained has overcome obstacles in the will of the governed as much as any other. Among children the right of the parent to govern for the welfare of the family is never questioned until character and wisdom are doubted. Among crude and disorganized bodies of people, superior wisdom and earnest purpose make leadership. Yet always, in the end, the ideal of welfare in any community implies growth of individuals into authority over themselves as one of its main objects, if not its chief one. Thus the best government for any community at any stage of its advancement is the one that best secures the welfare of all in existing circumstances.
It must be remembered that the chief elements of welfare are above government. All the kindly affections which make the chief bonds of society are to be cultivated by good government, but cannot be forced by any law, either positive or prohibitive. Individual character in all its proportions is individual growth, which can be fostered but not forced. All the catalogue of virtues is made up of elements of character, not one of which can be made by force. So government of every grade fosters the highest welfare of individuals by sustaining virtuous motives and restraining vicious ones, or rather by encouraging right action in its enjoyment of welfare and restraining wrong action by deprivation of welfare. Government, therefore, is best when its aims are distinctly confined to universal welfare. The distinctly personal wants can be best provided for by affording the best conditions for free exercise of individual powers. Governments can never wisely do favors for a class, since such favors weaken the power of government for promoting general welfare. What government does for any it needs to do for all. What it does for all it must secure to each in fair proportion. In any effort to extend the range of governmental action this natural limit of universal welfare for individuals must be considered.
Ends of government.—In this view of the reasons for organized government and its natural limits, certain universal wants can be clearly perceived. Most obvious is protection against external foes, personal or material. This universal need, in the presence of personal enemies, is so plain as to make the crime of treason notorious. The internal peace of society is just as evidently [pg 339] a universal necessity, and so any infringement upon the order of society, as agreed upon either by express statute or by the common law of established precedent, is punished as a crime against all. Personal violence, even in the shape of private vengeance for wrong done, is a menace to internal order, and so a crime against the whole organization. The mutual dependence of each upon all and all upon each in every-day transactions enforces the interest of the organization in personal contracts, and makes the government a partner with every right-doer against every wrong-doer in all attempts at fraud or abuse of power of every kind. This guardianship of personal freedom makes necessary the bulk of criminal law and most of the machinery of courts. The arbitration of disputes between interested parties is a natural sequence of the effort to prevent violence. Government does not and cannot right wrongs; it barely saves a remnant of good to the individual wronged, and furnishes a warning to others against future wrong.
Universal needs.—Every force, external or internal, which is likely to be injurious to the whole community, the whole community through its organization is obliged to combat. Hence the necessity for quarantine against infections diseases wherever found, and provision against destructive storms wherever possible. Protection against the ravages of insects falls into the same list, and so does every safeguard in which the whole community is interested. The same principle applies to positive provisions for welfare in economical ways of meeting universal wants. The universality of the need [pg 340] makes the water supply and the lighting of cities a proper work for the city organization. If the same machinery can provide most economically for larger personal wants without infringing upon the rights of all, simple economy invites it, and the principles of good government sustain it. The question of municipal lighting is simply one of true economy for the entire body of citizens.
For the same reason, that everybody needs it, the government is obliged to have control of the means of transit so far as ease and safety and economy to all require. Government must maintain highways suited to the needs of the community at all stages of its development. The question of city management of street car lines, beyond such control as secures safety and essential justice, is purely one of economy for all concerned; that is, for the entire community. This economy is not settled for one community by the conditions of any other. It must be decided in each community whose interests are to be served by the actual need and abilities of that community.
The same may be said in regard to all methods of providing ready communication of wants and abilities as needed for mutual welfare. The postal system is a natural government machine, because every citizen needs to be within reach of every other citizen in the same community. If government does not furnish the machinery, it must control it to the same end. The extent of the machine must be decided by the extent of the want. If the want is sufficiently universal, the organization cannot avoid providing the machinery. [pg 341] This principle applies to every form of communication devised or discovered. The question of government ownership of telegraph or telephone connections becomes one of simple economy, whenever the community finds such means of communication a matter of universal want. If economy or vested rights of individuals prevent such provision, government must still guard these universal interests by inspection and control. The exact point where government ownership becomes economical and legitimate must be decided by a careful weighing of the general interests of the whole community.
Universal education.—The necessity for universal intelligence is so evident that governments not only recognize and foster benevolent efforts of individuals for education, but rightly make the organization itself a direct force in maintaining educational institutions. Public schools are now universally recognized by most enlightened people as meeting a universal need, and therefore one of the essentials of good government. How extensive such provision should be is still an unsettled question. In fact, it can never be finally settled in any growing community, because the universal need of the community becomes more and more extended. So far as universal intelligence depends upon the higher intelligence of leaders in the community, the whole mass is interested in the training of that higher intelligence. The very nature of education, shedding its light over all in its neighborhood, makes every member of the community a sharer in the advantages of university training. Hence governments rightly and economically [pg 342] administer educational systems which involve the welfare of all. The same responsibility makes improper the use of public funds in support of private institutions without such restrictions as insure the good of all.
The propriety of governmental control of churches and religious training must rest upon the same basis of principle. Religion is of such a personal nature, so wholly a matter of conscience, that it cannot be said in any proper sense to be universal. Yet the need of religions sentiment and freedom in development of that sentiment is universal. The state does well to provide security for religious thought, practices and fostering influences in all governmental machinery. On this ground the civil law protects a Sabbath. The state church has had its apparent reason for existence, and still has in many parts of the world, from the close connection between religious training and popular education. Naturally state churches emphasize the educational side of religions institutions. The world is coming to see more clearly the dividing line between information or thought about religion and religious action in faith, its common basis, and can leave the latter for individual growth.
Government wards.—The welfare of the whole reaches finally to a guardianship over such individuals in the community as endanger, either by weakness or by wickedness, that welfare. For this reason government can maintain asylums for the weak or diseased, or even the extremely ignorant, not simply to protect these individuals, perhaps not chiefly for that purpose, but to [pg 343] protect the whole. It can rightly and wisely enforce such protection by health regulations and officers, and by truant laws and officials. Upon this principle it may rightly constrain even the friends of insane persons to give up control of the insane to the safer public provision in asylums. When any community realizes a similar need with reference to inebriates, it will assume the same constraining authority.
In dealing with the problem of personal wickedness, a community must still draw the line between universal and individual welfare. The criminal injures all; therefore all must constrain him, and effort is made to measure that constraint by the evidence of opposition to public welfare. Vices are more distinctly individual. They touch the universal welfare in those forms which propagate vice in neighborhoods. Governments universally fail to enforce laws against personal vices wherever the danger to upright character in other persons is not clearly perceived. All restrictive legislation upon vicious habits, like intemperance, gambling or other immoral practices, is naturally aimed first at the places contrived to foster such habits, and therefore to attack the innocent. The actual working of such legislation in preventing the growth of vice is the only final test of its wisdom. What it can do is what it ought to do. In general the actual public sentiment in local communities must be the main dependence for executing such laws.
Protection of the weak.—The common statement that government must protect the weak against the strong is subject to the same principle of universal welfare, and is applicable only where society has definitely recognized [pg 344] rules of good order which somebody is violating. Any attempt to supply to the weak a strength which they cannot wield is necessarily a failure. But society as a whole rightly shields children and youth, and even women of mature years, from burdens which may injure the general health or wisdom or virtue of the community. Laws prohibiting contracts which involve such burdens can be enforced so far as the community appreciates the evil of such contracts. So, to a certain extent, weakness from ignorance may be protected by any method that tends to remove the cause of weakness. All such action of government must be carefully guarded against becoming such a protection as will render the weak weaker.
Public responsibility.—The organization of community is best for the mass of the people when all desires are allowed to give their proper impulse to action, and when every enterprise is encouraged by freedom until it is seen to infringe upon the general welfare. Any system of government which checks natural impulses and hinders individual enterprise, without clear evidence that all must suffer from such freedom, is harmful. The genuine application of the phrase "laissez faire" is in giving honest efforts free course, because these efforts secure the largest good. It really means, leave humanity free until injury is attempted. In general, government has to deal with all necessities which are identical throughout the community. Provision for those necessities and those only it is bound to make.
All questions of nationalization of industries or of [pg 345] community consumption must be brought to the test of universal need. What the whole community wants the whole community has a right to provide in the way which brings most good with least expenditure of exertion in any form. No other question can outweigh in importance this one of public need or public welfare. Every producer and every consumer is interested in seeing that such welfare is not overlooked by the public, or infringed upon by any individual or combination of individuals in his community. This must be done by emphasizing personal responsibility, even in public enterprises. For the statement is beyond dispute, that the attempt to substitute corporate responsibility for personal responsibility ends in no responsibility at all. Above all things it is necessary to remember that all the progress yet made from the starvation and degradation of barbarism has been by organized interest of the whole community in protecting first individual life, second individual liberty, and third individual property, as the foundation of universal welfare. Yet society holds all these rights of individuals subject to the same higher law of welfare by restricting the purpose of individuals when possible, and action always, if it opposes the total welfare.