In his victory speech on election night, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani told his supporters: “There is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” Such sentiments show a marked contrast from the original idea of government as a means of securing life, liberty and property, on which our political system is based.
Debates about the details of particular policies are often unfruitful because they miss the heart of the philosophical question that underlies the fundamental disagreement: What is the proper role of the government in a free society?
The political philosopher John Stuart Mill, one of the original apostles of liberalism, put forth three arguments for limited government in his famous 1859 essay, “On Liberty.”
The first reason why the government should not interfere with the private sector is that those who have a personal stake in the outcome are more likely to produce better results. As Mill wrote, “When the thing to be done is likely to be better done by individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall be conducted, as those who are personally interested in it. This principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the legislature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes of industry.” Competition in free enterprise motivates individuals to constantly improve their services.
Mill also recognized that limited government promotes independence, personal responsibility and self-reliance, explaining that “in many cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a means to their own mental education.” Problem-solving through voluntary association and individual initiative provides the citizenry opportunities for “strengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal.”
“The third and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government,” according to Mill, “is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.” Expanding the role of government in society politicizes more areas of life and creates more struggles for power and opportunities for political conflict. As Mill recognized: “Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government.” In a time of strong political division, it is curious that Americans would want the government to become even more involved in the life of the citizen and society. The more areas of life in which the government seeks to exert its influence, the more places where there will be political division.
Contemporary views that the government should solve every problem or take on more responsibilities traditionally left to individuals, families, religious institutions, charities, businesses and nonprofit organizations represents a fundamental change in Americans’ views on the role of the government in the life of the citizen.
The question of what kinds of activities ought to be performed by the state is a subject that has occupied centuries of political philosophy, from Plato to John Rawls, but there are certain basic functions that have been widely recognized as being the government’s primary purpose: Protecting individuals’ rights, settling disputes, protecting public safety and ensuring national security.
In exchange for surrendering absolute freedom and agreeing to live under the rule of law, individuals receive protection of life, liberty and property. Likewise, the necessity for an impartial arbiter to adjudicate disputes between individuals is fulfilled by the government’s judicial function. The tremendous national coordination required in operating military and law enforcement is also a governmental function.
Essentially, the government does best, and is most needed, in fulfilling the types of activities private individuals and organizations cannot do themselves. Often, these kinds of tasks require the use of force, whether it be physically or through the power of legal sanction. Indeed, the monopoly on force is the defining characteristic of government. Expanding the scope of government beyond its primary role of protection and adjudicating conflicts increases the amount of coercive power that may be used on the citizenry. That will be the consequence of a government that tries to solve every problem and involve itself in every concern.