Rethinking How We Think About Government

One of the most prominent themes in contemporary political discourse is the less government/more government dichotomy.  Calls for less government, particularly coming from conservative voices (though also, it should be noted, constituting a significant element of liberal discourse as well) feature significantly in U.S. political discussions.  Last night, President Obama, predictably, referenced the theme in his State of the Union address when he said, "For several years now, this town has been consumed by a rancorous argument over the proper size of the federal government. It's an important debate – one that dates back to our very founding. But when that debate prevents us from carrying out even the most basic functions of our democracy – when our differences shut down government or threaten the full faith and credit of the United States – then we are not doing right by the American people."

This question came up in a course that I taught last summer when someone, in asking about this in connection with a particular issue, sought to verify an understanding that folks on the right tend to be for less government and folks on the left tend to be for more government.  I don't blame the person for this characterization.  It's a common shorthand for understanding positions, and even my very first thought was to agree.  Yet, in the end, I didn't agree, and we talked about that.  Ultimately, I argued – and I seek to argue here – that that dichotomy is erroneous.  As someone who defines himself quite heavily on the political left, I am not for "more government," as that shorthand would suggest, nor am I for "less government."  I am for, and I expressed it this way last summer, "more effective government." 

On the one hand, "more effective government" can refer to the idea that the size of what tends to be called "government" – i.e., the official political institutions of the state – doesn't matter as much as the degree to which that "government" functions effectively.  I think lots of folks, regardless of how they lean politically, tend to agree with that.  They want government to function well to serve the needs it is purporting to serve.   However, there is a deeper level here that can easily translate into "more government" because it can tend to translate to more official political processes and institutions, though that phrase is a misnomer. 

On that deeper level, I ask that we rethink how we think about the word "government."  In asking this, I suggest that we recognize that no matter what, we are governed.  Even if we developed an official political system built on anarchy – i.e., a system with no official rules for practice – we would be governed.  In that case, we would be governed by the practices that unofficially develop as the ways of doing things in society.  If that meant that the very powerful could wield that power however they wish because there would be no official way to stop them, then the ways they wielded their power would set the rules for how we are governed.  Indeed, this is part of the concern about what is called "deregulation" in contemporary politics in connection with corporatization.  If the result of less official state-defined regulations means more freedom for corporations to do as they wish, then we may have less "government" in the official state capacity, but we are no less governed.  Rather, we are then governed by the rules and practices set forth by those corporations, and insofar as those corporations do not and need not build their practices on democratic processes that seek to allow for multiplicities of voices and constituencies to be heard – the kinds of democratic practices wherein, for instance, employees have significant say over their working conditions and customers have some recourse when sold unfit products and services – then we have little say in how we are governed unless we are among the elite groups that determine the rules and practices that govern us.  (Of course, this leaves aside for the moment that corporations need official state government to exist because they cannot exist with government charters that allow them to do so. Though, even if we de-chartered corporations, with rolled-back official state government there would be little to nothing to keep organizations from imposing their wills.)

The term "deregulation" itself suffers this very problem.  We hear all the time about deregulation, by which people mean less official state regulation, but ultimately this does not deregulate anything.  Rather, it transfers the power to determine who regulates from the state to organizations outside the state.  So, when we "deregulate" business, it means not that people aren't regulated, but that businesses do the regulating of us.  And while that might sound good – i.e., the sentiment that organizations and people get to regulate themselves – that is not how that works.  Rather, it means that those with power within organizations get more say in regulating the rest of us because they have more power to determine and construct organizational practices.  (This is, of course, unless businesses are organized in egalitarian ways that limit individuals’ power, but without official state rules that would call for such structures, it’s hard to see how the organizationally empowered would generally create such structures, and history tends to tell us that they don’t do so.)

That, then, gets back to the heart of the problem that goes along with the less government/more government dichotomy.  Many folks look at how our official state "government" works and see that the wealthy and powerful exert too much influence, and I think those folks are correct to voice concern about that.  Indeed, many on the political left and the political right would agree on that regard.  Yet, the standard "conservative" answers of removing all kinds of official state processes, institutions, and functions is faulty because in its current manifestations, it simply transfers how the wealthy and powerful exert that influence from through the official state to around – or, perhaps better expressed as "in absence of" – the state.  In this regard these conservative voices do as they typically do -- they identify a legitimate problem but then propose solutions that don't really address the depth of the problem.  Meanwhile, the standard "liberal" answers of reforming the official state processes also fail to address the depth of the problem because, in the end, at best, they do only a little to make those processes more egalitarian, and they often simply increase the bureaucratization of those processes, which of course, then leads to a legitimate judgment of having created ineffective "more government."

I would, then, propose that we rethink our use and understanding of the word "government."  "Government" is not simply the official state institutions and process.  It is, rather, the state of human relations as they influence our behaviors.  We will always be governed, even if it's in the most informal sense.  The question is, then, how we might ensure that there is equity in the ability of individuals to be heard and cultures to be expressed – with all of them being meaningfully considered – within the system by which we are governed, as formal or informal as that might be.  So, the question here is not the size of government – i.e., whether government is "big" or "small" – but the process of government – i.e., whether government effectively provides for, reflects, and protects the diversity of human practices and perspectives that it represents.  At least for me, this leads to an interest in official government that is built out of providing for the expression, consideration, and protection of a diversity of perspectives because it seems that in unofficial government, practices need not account for that, as the empowered can impose their will without much sanction or contestation.  Yes, what I propose sounds like "more government," and in at least some ways it would seem that it may very well mean more official government, but really it's not any more or less real government; rather, it's more or less official government, with an emphasis on "more effective government," recognizing that unofficial government often means government that is ineffective in meeting and protecting people's interests.  And when I look at it that way, the "liberal" voices in this country don't do enough to address the problem, while the "conservative" voices lead us away from what would address the problem.

Perhaps there are ways to conceptualize more effective government in conjunction with less official government.  Though in my current understanding those do not align, I'm certainly open to seeing ways that they could.  However, we as a society can't have that conversation until we overcome the more government/less government dichotomy, and in conjunction with that we recognize that even in what tends to be called "less government" we are indeed just as governed, and thus, we need to examine how that government would work.  In our contemporary political discourse, that isn't happening.