Good morning!! Stephen wasn’t able to get his article to me for posting until this morning, so here it is!!! Thanks, Stephen. Have a good day everyone!
Frequent readers will be familiar with my occasional reference to the “scope” of government, as opposed to the size or power of the government, and it occurs to me that a greater elucidation is in order distinguishing the concept and its importance.
Scope: “The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant [& . . . a] purpose, end, or intention.” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/scope I intentionally combined two of the listed definitions of this site to more accurately encompass the meaning of the word because it is not merely the extent of the subject matter but also the purpose for which that extent is created. These are not really separate concepts, because in dealing with the creation of the state, the extent of power granted to the state is delineated by that state’s purpose.
“That to secure the unalienable rights to which all men are endowed, Governments are instituted among Men.” Declaration of Independence (paraphrased). It is with this purpose in mind that we look to the extent or proper scope of the state, to do otherwise would first demand of us to prove the actual purpose of the state to be otherwise, a contention I am not willing to concede.
To borrow the rationale of Arthur Laffer: a state with no power would necessarily have no power to secure any right to any man being such a non-existent state, for a state without power is no state at all; a state with absolute power necessarily denies the citizenry the very existence of rights, rights being defined as the prohibition of interference by that very state; ergo the optimal or proper power of the state must be greater than none (0%) but less than absolute (100%).
Of course, this analogous rationale falters at this point because the concepts of rights are not a linear percentage of having more or less but rather a set of discrete values of the existential nature of the right as recognized by that society, nevertheless is does mark a beginning of understanding the fundamental concept of a limited government as the Constitution aims at enshrining.
Thus is revealed the foolishness of those who would seek a state without government, who proclaim statements such as “taxation is theft” and like sentiments which would deny the state any power; while simultaneously revealing the foolishness of those who would seek a state without limits on the power of that government, who imagine that the state possesses the authority dictate in every possible aspect of society such as “health care”, “hate crimes”, “gender”, or “science”.
Power of the state is less defined by extent, as previously mentioned a linear concept, as it is by scope, which is more of an existential concept, if you will. The question which ought first occur to everyone regarding any political issue is: “Is this a proper function of government?” If the answer is no, then stop; there is nothing to discuss.
The second question, contingent only upon an affirmative answer to the first question, which ought to be asked of every political issue in a republic: “What level of government is appropriate to address this particular issue?” Only then may any reasonable discussion be held upon any issue, but these questions are simply skipped by fools who imagine a limitless government.
In the more enlightened dark ages, such distinctions were not merely common parlance but were essential elements of the structure of medieval society.
When a warrant was issued for the arrest of some ne’er-do-well but such miscreant was unable to be located, the local law enforcement officer, the bailiff, would return the document to the court with such notice that such individual was not to be found in his bailiwick.
(For those less familiar, the sheriff was merely the tax collector not law enforcement. It does shed new light on the Tales of Robin Hood as a tax issue, does it not?)
Those familiar with courts recognize the concepts of jurisdiction which limit those over whom the court has authority to pass judgment. Even the courts themselves divided between the ecclesiastical courts, or Courts of the Church, which would later become courts of equity, and even later “civil courts”, that oversaw disputes amongst the citizens, and the King’s Courts, which would later become criminal courts that oversaw cases of offense against the crown or the state.
This modern medieval adaptation of that distinction of antiquity between that which was properly civil and that which was civic in nature, though we have yet to articulate such clear distinction in our modern courts which Roman courts has long ago clarified.
The political map itself gets divided into political divisions of geographic areas of counties, shires, parishes, states, nations, and such so that the rule of any particular government is defined by its physical limitations of authority.
Just as such courts, counties, and offices face limitations it is the nature of different aspects of society to suffer similar such limitations in the scope or extent of their role in society. Every profession or institution or occupation limits its operations to some area or field of expertise. What insanity imagines that government, as an institution, is beyond this conception of natural limitation according to its function and purpose?
“Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar? . . . And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.” King Lear, Act IV, Scene VI.
What natural limitation exists for a proper function of the government? If a state is invaded, being an existential question of that state’s, and even its people’s continuation, there can be no natural limit to the state’s authority militarily in its own defense. That is no different than the individual’s reliance upon the defense of necessity to justify what might in other circumstance be considered a crime or civil offense.
This idea is expressed in many clauses of the Constitution itself which frequently makes explicit exception to its own rules in time of war. However, as soon as the crisis of war abates, such order and limitations naturally reassert themselves.
As to other proper functions of government such as the provision for postal roads or the regulation of foreign commerce, the benefit to the citizenry naturally checks the government through the political process of elections.
A state has the natural and necessary authority to tax the citizen to pay for its operations, thus if those operations are not limited, then neither is the state’s taxation authority. If a state may engage in every aspect of society, and that authority is not limited by extent, then there can be no limit on that state’s expense, or necessarily taxation.
So if any state is to be limited in its authority, it must be limited by the scope of its authority and not the extent of it. A state which provides and controls all of the production of that state becomes unlimited in power, but also necessarily unlimited in expense, thus the concept of limitation of the government itself must disappear. That is the nature of the socialist state.
So upon what objective principle must the scope of government be limited in order to secure the rights of the citizenry?
I would maintain that the most well articulated expression of the limiting principle of the state in a republic must be that principle which in the modern parlance economists refer to as a “public good”, whose definition delineates those aspects of society within the proper scope of the state.
The expansion of our nation’s government under the so called “New Deal” and the so called “Progressive” agenda has been almost invariably an invasion of the state into those aspects of society which are not public goods, but a specious labeling of private goods as matters of public concern.
What makes the wages agreed between the master and the servant a function of the government? Or for that matter, the number of hours they work or the condition of the workplace? Forget the excuse that it is better for some worker or another, and look at the question in the abstract. Why is employment a proper function of the state?
Examine the concept of education as another example. What makes whether I learn or chose to remain ignorant a matter of federal importance? The state neither suffers nor benefits from my enlightenment or ignorance, and neither does society in general.
“I want” or “I think society should” or “people would be better off if” is never a real answer to the question of “is it the state’s job”. Such statements are simply expressions of the abandonment of the foundational principle of a government limited in scope, an invasion of such private bailiwick by the state. This is the root cause of the expansion of government, the unlimited state, the death of rights.
Nothing which does not fit this definition of a public good ought to be undertaken by the government at any level, but just because a good or service falls under the rubric of a “public good” it does not necessarily follow that every level of government is equally suited to oversee such function.
The Founding Fathers agree, citing such examples as criminal offences in Federalist Paper #17 as functions properly within the scope of the state governments rather than the federal government. In other such papers referring to the defense of the nation as more properly a responsibility of the federal rather than the state government.
