This past summer was anything but good for limited government supporters. We saw yet another killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white cop, followed by a military-style occupation by police of a suburban community. Parentless children along America’s southern border ignited a fierce debate over immigration – with little talk of how to help the young refugees from lands torn apart by drug cartels. The Russian invasion of Crimea provided opportunists in Washington the chance to gin up war sentiment. Just as the last August sun set, the beheading of American journalist James Foley became a pretext for bombing Iraq and Syria.
These are all equally disturbing issues that reflect the inner fallibility of mankind. But more than that, these dilemmas get at the root cause of what ails government (specifically the United States): its vastness and aspiration far outweigh its abilities. Public perception is largely responsible for this disparity. As government grows, and it attempts to meet the needs from a growing list of concerns, the people lose focus of what political means can really accomplish. More importantly, they lose the ability to envision how civil society can cope with problems.
This disconnect was epitomized by one event over the summer. When Debra Harrell allowed her 9-year-old daughter to play in park while she worked her shift at a nearby McDonald’s, chaos ensued. A frantic parent was appalled by the idea of a child playing among other children in fine weather. Instead of confronting Harrell directly, the worried adult called the police. Government was the immediate solution. Harrell ended up in jail for short time, while her daughter landed in the care of state protective services.
As another war in the Middle East rages, reflecting on the jailing of a neglectful mother seems almost superfluous. But the incident speaks to the larger issue of reliance on government. When civil society – what Yuval Levin calls “the space between the individual and the state” – is neglected, something must fiill the vacuum. Politicians are more than happy to take up the space, justifying their own careers in the process. In a social democracy, the personal inevitably becomes politic.
Is there a way to reverse this trend? Is it possible to stop government from being the go-to source of mediation?
In the era of the nation-state, where the body politic must answer to a centralized ruling class, it is still possible to find instances of self-rule – the very embodiment of civil society. They exist all around us; under our noses in the most inconsequential of actions. Norms that govern how we behave in grocery stores, in restaurants, on public transportation, or walking on the sidewalk are not written in the federal register. They develop over time, by way of human volition. No bureaucrat is consulted. As Gene Callahan points out, without these kind of informal codes, “social life would become overburdened with countless regulations concerning our quotidian interactions.”
Some of this, to borrow the Hayekian phrase, “spontaneous” order runs deeper. It isn’t so much a trial-and-error process that becomes tradition over time, but a way of life that defines a culture. Medieval pirates relied on what’s known as the “merchant law” to settle disputes among themselves. Colonial America had the code duello, an honor system that allowed for duels to defend one’s reputation. Inner city lifestyle is often defined by virile bravado with an oath to stay quiet in the midst of law enforcement. Unfortunately, it often looks upon meritorious success with disdain – what Ta-Nehisi Coates describes as not having “the right to be the best at anything.”
These kinds of cultural norms act as an enforcing mechanism for a perceived way of order. Given the violent nature of some, they are far from perfect. Then again, there are no perfect rules that govern a society. We can conceive of just principles to adhere to; but often times, we fall short of fulfilling them. A purely libertarian society will not be void of coercion against the innocent. A religious community won’t always follow a written creed. A progressive conclave won’t vanquish inequality. The important thing is a respect for tradition and the agreed-to set of rules and boundaries. Real human liberty is about maintaining order that is conducive to human flourishing. What that order may be is up for individuals to decide.
So what does this have to do with the case of the “abandoned” child? It’s clear American society – and it could be argued Western countries in general – is slowly losing its grasp on the importance of civil society, and its informal code of conduct. Government enforcers are now the go-to mediators of conflicts. Talking to one another, finding common solutions, and keeping the state out of the sphere of private life is no longer seen as a viable option. Friendly phone calls and front porch discussions are replaced with guns and badges.
This was the point of progressivism all along. As Levin declares, the ultimate agenda of the Left is to “push civil society out of the government’s way.” Local problems, such as a child playing unsupervised in a park, are now the business of the state. Radical jihadists rampaging across the Cradle of Civilization requires an international response. Children stranded, unclothed and hungry, along the border becomes an issue for authorities thousands of miles away. The alleged gunning down of an unarmed teenager is now a tragedy worthy of a federal investigation. These reactions all speak to the disconnect between locality and nation; what’s familiar and what’s removed; closeness and distance.
Government doesn’t always grow by giant spurts through what historian Robert Higgs called the “ratchet effect.” Mission creep is the inspiration for centralization. As Roger Scruton said in a recent interview,
“Socialists, when they see a problem, they want a centralised answer to it. Whereas conservatives are more open to the thought that if a problem arises locally, it must be solved locally—to the extent that it can be solved at all. Also, conservatives are open to the thought that most [political] problems are not soluble.”
When it comes to disputes, local is better. Informal code is better than government diktat. And chalking up some dilemmas to being unsolvable may sometimes be for the best. That some problems lack a solution by human minds is blasphemous to liberals. If the end goal of progressivism is egalitarian utopia – veritable Kingdom of God on Earth – then all complications must have man-made panacea. Otherwise, the entire edifice of progressivism bottoms out; making government no better than every other flawed, human invention.