The State
The Objects Of Government
Author: Wilson, Woodrow
The Objects Of Government
1514. Character of the Subject. - Political interest and controversy
centre nowhere more acutely than in the question, What are the proper objects
of government? This is one of those difficult questions upon which it is
possible for many sharply opposed views to be held apparently with almost
equal weight of reason. Its central difficulty is this, that it is a question
which can be answered, if answered at all, only by the aid of a broad and
careful wisdom whose conclusions are based upon the widest possible inductions
from the facts of political experience in all its phases. Such wisdom is
quite beyond the capacity of most thinkers and actors in the field of
politics; and the consequence has been that this question, perhaps more than
any other in the whole scope of political science, has provoked great wars of
doctrine.
1515. The Extreme Views held. - What part shall government play in the
affairs of society? - that is the question which has been the gauge of
controversial battle. What ought the functions of government to be? On the
one hand there are extremists who cry constantly to government, 'Hands off,'
'laissez faire,' 'laissez passer,' who look upon every act of government which
is not merely an act of police with jealousy; who regard government as
necessary, but as a necessary evil; and who would have government hold back
from everything which could by any possibility be accomplished by individual
initiative and endeavor. On the other hand, there are those who, with equal
extremeness of view in the opposite direction, would have society lean fondly
upon government for guidance and assistance in every affair of life; who,
captivated by some glimpse of public power and beneficence caught in the pages
of ancient or mediaeval historian, or by some dream of cooperative endeavor
cunningly imagined by the great fathers of Socialism, believe that the state
can be made a wise foster mother to every member of the family politic.
Between these two extremes, again, there are all grades, all shades and
colors, all degrees of enmity or of partiality to state action.
1516. Historical Foundation for Opposite Views. - Enmity to exaggerated
state action, even a keen desire to keep that action down to its lowest
possible terms, is easily furnished with impressive justification. It must
unreservedly be admitted that history abounds with warnings of no uncertain
sort against indulging the state with a too great liberty of interference with
the life and work of its citizens. Much as there is that is attractive in the
political life of the city states of Greece and Rome, in which the public
power was suffered to be omnipotent, - their splendid public spirit, their
incomparable organic wholeness, their fine play of rival talents, serving both
the common thought and the common action, their variety, their conception of
public virtue, - there is also much to blame, - their too wanton invasion of
that privacy of the individual life in which alone family virtue can dwell
secure, their callous tyranny over minorities in matters which might have been
left to individual choice, their sacrifice of personal independence for the
sake of public solidarity, their hasty average judgments, their too confident
trust in the public voice. They, it is true, could not have had the
individual liberty which we cherish without breaking violently with their own
history, with the necessary order of their development; but neither can we, on
the other hand, imitate them without an equally violent departure from our own
normal development and a reversion to the now too primitive methods of their
pocket republics.
1517. Unquestionable as it is that mediaeval history affords many
seductive examples of an absence of grinding, heartless competition and a
strength of mutual interdependence, confidence, and helpfulness between class
and class such as the modern economist may be pardoned for wishing to see
revived; and true though it be that the history of Prussia under some of the
greater Hohenzollern gives at least colorable justification to the opinion
that state interference may under many circumstances be full of benefit for
the industrial upbuilding of a state, it must, on the other hand, be
remembered that neither the feudal system, nor the mediaeval guild system, nor
the paternalism of Frederic the Great can be rehabilitated now that the
nineteenth century has wrought its revolutions in industry, in church, and in
state; and that, even if these great systems of the past could be revived, we
should be sorely puzzled to reinstate their blessings without restoring at the
same time their acknowledged evils. No student of history can wisely censure
those who protest against state paternalism.
1518. The State a Beneficent and Indispensable Organ of Society. - It by
no means follows, nevertheless, that because the state may unwisely interfere
in the life of the individual, it must be pronounced in itself and by nature a
necessary evil. It is no more an evil than is society itself. It is the
organic body of society: without it society would be hardly more than a mere
abstraction. If the name had not been restricted to a single, narrow,
extreme, and radically mistaken class of thinkers, we ought all to regard
ourselves and to act as socialists, believers in the wholesomeness and
beneficence of the body politic. If the history of society proves anything,
it proves the absolute naturalness of government, its rootage in the nature of
man, its origin in kinship, and its identification with all that makes man
superior to the brute creation. Individually man is but poorly equipped to
dominate other animals: his lordship comes by combination, his strength is
concerted strength, his sovereignty is the sovereignty of union. Outside of
society man's mind can avail him little as an instrument of supremacy; and
government is the visible form of society. If society itself be not an evil,
neither surely is government an evil, for government is the indispensable
organ of society.
1519. Every means, therefore, by which society may be perfected through
the instrumentality of government, every means by which individual rights can
be fitly adjusted and harmonized with public duties, by which individual
self-development may be made at once to serve and to supplement social
development, ought certainly to be diligently sought, and, when found,
sedulously fostered by every friend of society. Such is the socialism to
which every true lover of his kind ought to adhere with the full grip of every
noble affection that is in him.
1520. Socialism and the Modern Industrial Organization. - It is possible
indeed, to understand, and even in a measure to sympathize with, the
enthusiasm of those special classes of agitators whom we have dubbed with the
too great name of 'Socialists.' The schemes of social reform and regeneration
which they support with so much ardor, however mistaken they may be, - and
surely most of them are mistaken enough to provoke the laughter of children, -
have the right end in view: they seek to bring the individual with his special
interests, personal to himself, into complete harmony with society with its
general interests, common to all. Their method is always some sort of
cooperation, meant to perfect mutual helpfulness. They speak, too, a revolt
from selfish, misguided individualism; and certainly modern individualism has
much about it that is hateful, too hateful to last. The modern industrial
organization has so distorted competition as sometimes to put it into the
power of some to tyrannize over many, as to enable the rich and the strong to
combine against the poor and the weak. It has given a woful material meaning
to that spiritual law that "to him that hath shall be given, and from him that
hath not shall be taken away even the little that he seemeth to have." ^1 It
has magnified that self-interest which is grasping selfishness and has thrust
out love and compassion not only, but free competition in part, as well.
Surely it would be better, exclaims the Socialist, altogether to stamp out
competition by making all men equally subject to the public order, to an
imperative law of social cooperation! But the Socialist mistakes: it is not
competition that kills, but unfair competition, the pretence and form of it
where the substance and reality of it cannot exist.
[Footnote 1: Compare F. A. Walker's Political Economy (Advanced Course), sec.
346.]
1521. A Middle Ground. - And there is a middle ground. The schemes which
Socialists have proposed society cannot accept and live; and no scheme which
involves the complete control of the individual by government can be devised
which differs from theirs very much for the better. A truer doctrine must be
found, which gives wide freedom to the individual for his self-development and
yet guards that freedom against the competition that kills, and reduces the
antagonism between self-development and social development to a minimum. And
such a doctrine can be formulated, surely, without too great vagueness.
1522. The Objects of Society the Objects of Government. - Government, as
I have said, is the organ of society, its only potent and universal
instrument: its objects must be the objects of society. What, then, are the
objects of society? What is society? It is an organic association of
individuals for mutual aid. Mutual aid to what? To self-development. The
hope of society lies in an infinite individual variety, in the freest possible
play of individual forces: only in that can it find that wealth of resource
which constitutes civilization, with all its appliances for satisfying human
wants and mitigating human sufferings, all its incitements to thought and
spurs to action. It should be the end of government to assist in
accomplishing the objects of organized society. There must be constant
adjustments of governmental assistance to the needs of a changing social and
industrial organization. Not license of interference on the part of
government, but only strength, and adaptation of regulation. The regulation
that I mean is not interference: it is the equalization of conditions, so far
as possible, in all branches of endeavor; and the equalization of conditions
is the very opposite of interference.
1523. Every rule of development is a rule of adaptation, a rule for
meeting 'the circumstances of the case'; but the circumstances of the case, it
must be remembered, are not, so far as government is concerned, the
circumstances of any individual case, but the circumstances of society's case,
the general conditions of social organization. The case for society stands
thus: the individual must be assured the best means, the best and fullest
opportunities, for complete self-development: in no other way can society
itself gain variety and strength. But one of the most indispensable
conditions of opportunity for self-development government alone, society's
controlling organ, can supply. All combinations which necessarily create
monopoly, which necessarily put and keep indispensable means of industrial or
social development in the hands of a few, and those few, not the few selected
by society itself, but the few selected by arbitrary fortune, must be under
either the direct or the indirect control of society. To society alone can
the power of dominating by combination belong. It cannot suffer any of its
members to enjoy such a power for their own private gain independently of its
own strict regulation or oversight.
1524. Natural Monopolies. - It is quite possible to distinguish natural
monopolies from other classes of undertakings; their distinctive marks are
thus enumerated by Sir T. H. Farrer in his excellent little volume on the
State in its Relation to Trade which forms one of the well- known English
Citizen series: ^1
[Footnote 1: P. 71. Sir Thomas Farrer is Permanent Secretary of the English
Board of Trade (sec. 876).]
"1. What they supply is a necessary," a necessary, that is, to life, like
water, or a necessary to industrial action, like railroad transportation.
"2. They occupy peculiarly favored spots or lines of land." Here again
the best illustration is afforded by railroads or by telegraph lines, by
water-works, etc.
"3. The article or convenience they supply is used at the place and in
connection with the plant or machinery by which it is supplied"; that is to
say, at the favored spots or along the favored lines of land.
"4. This article or convenience can in general be largely, if not
indefinitely increased, without proportionate increase in plant and capital";
that is to say, the initial outlay having been made, the favored spot or line
of land having been occupied, every subsequent increase of business will
increase profits because it will not proportionately, or anything like
proportionately, increase the outlay for services or machinery needed. Those
who are outside of the established business, therefore, are upon an equality
of competition neither as regards available spots or lines of land nor as
regards opportunities to secure business in a competition of rates.
"5. Certain and harmonious arrangement, which can only be attained by
unity, are paramount considerations." Wide and systematic organization is
necessary.
1525. Such enterprises invariably give to a limited number of persons the
opportunity to command certain necessaries of life, of comfort, or of
industrial success against their fellow-countrymen and for their own
advantage. Once established in any field, there can be no real competition
between them and those who would afterwards enter that field. No agency
should be suffered to have such control except a public agency which may be
compelled by public opinion to act without selfish narrowness, upon perfectly
equal conditions as towards all, or some agency upon which the government may
keep a strong hold of regulation.
1526. Control not necessarily Administration. - Society can by no means
afford to allow the use for private gain and without regulation of
undertakings necessary to its own healthful and efficient operation and yet of
a sort to exclude equality in competition. Experience has proved that the
self-interest of those who have controlled such undertakings for private gain
is not coincident with the public interest: even enlightened self-interest may
often discover means of illicit pecuniary advantage in unjust discriminations
between individuals in the use of such instrumentalities. But the proposition
that the government should control such dominating organizations of capital
may by no means be wrested to mean by any necessary implication that the
government should itself administer those instrumentalities of economic action
which cannot be used except as monopolies. In such cases, as Sir T. H. Farrer
says, "there are two great alternatives. (1) Ownership and management by
private enterprise and capital under regulation by the state. (2) Ownership
and management by Government, central or local." Government regulation may in
most cases suffice. Indeed, such are the difficulties in the way of
establishing and maintaining careful business management on the part of
government, that control ought to be preferred to direct administration in as
many cases as possible, - in every case in which control without
administration can be made effectual.
1527. Equalization of Competition. - There are some things outside the
field of natural monopolies in which individual action cannot secure
equalization of the conditions of competition; and in these also, as in the
regulation of monopolies, the practice of governments, of our own as well as
of others, has been decisively on the side of governmental regulation. By
forbidding child labor, by supervising the sanitary conditions of factories,
by limiting the employment of women in occupations hurtful to their health, by
instituting official tests of the purity or the quality of goods sold, by
limiting hours of labor in certain trades, by a hundred and one limitations of
the power of unscrupulous or heartless men to out-do the scrupulous and
merciful in trade or industry, government has assisted equity. Those who
would act in moderation and good conscience in cases where moderation and good
conscience, if indulged, require an increased outlay of money, in better
ventilated buildings, in greater care as to the quality of goods, etc., cannot
be expected to act upon their principles so long as more grinding conditions
for labor or a more unscrupulous use of the opportunities of trade secure to
the unconscientious an unquestionable and sometimes even a permanent
advantage; they have only the choice of denying their consciences or retiring
from business. In scores of such cases government has intervened and will
intervene; but by way, not of interference, by way, rather, of making
competition equal between those who would rightfully conduct enterprise and
those who basely conduct it. It is in this way that society protects itself
against permanent injury and deterioration, and secures healthful equality of
opportunity for self- development.
1528. Society greater than Government. - Society, it must always be
remembered, is vastly bigger and more important than its instrument,
Government. Government should serve Society, by no means rule or dominate it.
Government should not be made an end in itself; it is a means only, - a means
to be freely adapted to advance the best interests of the social organism.
The State exists for the sake of Society, not Society for the sake of the
State.
1529. Natural Limits to State Action. - And that there are natural and
imperative limits to state action no one who seriously studies the structure
of society can doubt. The limit of state functions is the limit of necessary
cooperation on the part of Society as a whole, the limit beyond which such
combination ceases to be imperative for the public good and becomes merely
convenient for industrial or social enterprise. Cooperation is necessary in
the sense here intended when it is indispensable to the equalization of the
conditions of endeavor, indispensable to the maintenance of uniform rules of
individual rights and relationships, indispensable because to omit it would
inevitably be to hamper or degrade some for the advancement of others in the
scale of wealth and social standing.
1530. There are relations in which men invariably have need of each
other, in which universal cooperation is the indispensable condition of even
tolerable existence. Only some universal authority can make opportunities
equal as between man and man. The divisions of labor and the combinations of
commerce may for the most part be left to contract, to free individual
arrangement, but the equalization of the conditions which affect all alike may
no more be left to individual initiative than may the organization of
government itself. Churches, clubs, corporations, fraternities, guilds,
partnerships, unions, have for their ends one or another special enterprise
for the development of man's spiritual or material well-being: they are all
more or less advisable. But the family and the state have as their end a
general enterprise for the betterment and equalization of the conditions of
individual development: they are indispensable.
1531. The point at which public combination ceases to be imperative is
not susceptible of clear indication in general terms; but it is not on that
account indistinct. The bounds of family association are not indistinct
because they are marked only by the immaturity of the young and by the
parental and filial affections, - things not all of which are defined in the
law. The rule that the state should do nothing which is equally possible
under equitable conditions to optional associations is a sufficiently clear
line of distinction between governments and corporations. Those who regard
the state as an optional, conventional union simply, a mere partnership, open
wide the doors to the worst forms of socialism. Unless the state has a nature
which is quite clearly defined by that invariable, universal, immutable mutual
interdependence which runs beyond the family relations and cannot be satisfied
by family ties, we have absolutely no criterion by which we can limit, except
arbitrarily, the activities of the state. The criterion supplied by the
native necessity of state relations, on the other hand, banishes such license
of state action.
1532. The state, for instance, ought not to supervise private morals
because they belong to the sphere of separate individual responsibility, not
to the sphere of mutual dependence. Thought and conscience are private.
Opinion is optional. The state may intervene only where common action,
uniform law are indispensable. Whatever is merely convenient is optional, and
therefore not an affair for the state. Churches are spiritually convenient;
joint-stock companies are capitalistically convenient; but when the state
constitutes itself a church or a mere business association it institutes a
monopoly no better than others. It should do nothing which is not in any case
both indispensable to social or industrial life and necessarily monopolistic.
1533. The Family and the State. - It is the proper object of the family
to mould the individual, to form him in the period of immaturity in the faiths
of religion and in the practice of morality and obedience. This period of
subordination over, he is called out into an independent, self- directive
activity. The ties of family affection still bind him, but they bind him with
silken, not with iron bonds. He has left his 'minority' and reached his
'majority.' It is the proper object of the state to give leave to his
individuality, in order that that individuality may add its quota of variety
to the sum of national activity Family discipline is variable, selective,
formative: it must lead the individual. But the state must not lead. It must
create conditions, but not mould individuals. Its discipline must be
invariable, uniform, impersonal. Family methods rest upon individual
inequality, state methods upon individual equality. Family order rests upon
tutelage, state order upon franchise, upon privilege.
1534. The State and Education. - In one field the state would seem at
first sight to usurp the family function, the field, namely, of education. But
such is not in reality the case. Education is the proper office of the state
for two reasons, both of which come within the principles we have been
discussing. Popular education is necessary for the preservation of those
conditions of freedom, political and social, which are indispensable to free
individual development. And, in the second place, no instrumentality less
universal in its power and authority than government can secure popular
education. In brief, in order to secure popular education the action of
society as a whole is necessary; and popular education is indispensable to
that equalization of the conditions of personal development which we have
taken to be the proper object of society. Without popular education,
moreover, no government which rests upon popular action can long endure: the
people must be schooled in the knowledge, and if possible in the virtues, upon
which the maintenance and success of free institutions depend. No free
government can last in health if it lose hold of the traditions of its
history, and in the public schools these traditions may be and should be
sedulously preserved, carefully replanted in the thought and consciousness of
each successive generation.
1535. Historical Conditions of Governmental Action. - Whatever view be
taken in each particular case of the rightfulness or advisability of state
regulation and control, one rule there is which may not be departed from under
any circumstances, and that is the rule of historical continuity. In politics
nothing radically novel may safely be attempted. No result of value can ever
be reached in politics except through slow and gradual development, the
careful adaptations and nice modifications of growth. Nothing may be done by
leaps. More than that, each people, each nation, must live upon the lines of
its own experience. Nations are no more capable of borrowing experience than
individuals are. The histories of other peoples may furnish us with light,
but they cannot furnish us with conditions of action. Every nation must
constantly keep in touch with its past; it cannot run towards its ends around
sharp corners.
1536. Summary. - This, then, is the sum of the whole matter: the end of
government is the facilitation of the objects of society. The rule of
governmental action is necessary cooperation. The method of political
development is conservative adaptation, shaping old habits into new ones,
modifying old means to accomplish new ends.
