"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." -James Madison
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden... And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' interests, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." --Barry Goldwater
When government overrides the individual, replacing the choices, actions and responsibilities found in the free market, it does so under the premise that it is acting for the “common good.” When addressing the concept of the “common good,” a fundamental premise must first be recognized. That is that the individual in society does not automatically act against the common good, and the government does not automatically act for it.
Before proceeding with further commentary on government overriding the actions of free individuals, let’s pause for a moment to speak on the concept of the “common good”. Certainly there are operational problems with defining the term “common good”. The “common good”, which is the greatest “good” for the greatest number, is hardly scientific and by no means value-free, and surely not without questionable tenets. Why the greatest number? What’s’ so good about the greatest number? Cannot the choice of the lesser number also do good to the greater, possibly even more so than the choice of the greater number to the lesser number? F. Alder asked an even more basic question: “Why should the happiness of the greater number be cogent as an end upon those who happen to belong to the lesser number?” And what is the justification for individual counting as one? This is an unexamined assumption. Are there not factors for weighting? And since the “good” usually fulfills only the subjective emotional desires of each person, are those not changing and evolving. Are they not subject to persuasion and influence, learning and timing? How, in short, can the “good” be weighted? How can it be added and subtracted across various individuals as to arrive at a net social utility value, or cost?
However, the scope of the matter at hand here is to examine government’s role in the pursuit of “common good”. Putting aside the difficulty of defining a government description of “common good” for the moment, we see that the problem with making government the sole arbiter of the “common good” is its desire to over-intervene, with the tendency to exempt itself from the effects of its errors. Government intervention is also highly subject to self-interest and misdeeds. . “Norms of conduct, namely, respect for another person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice, are necessary to the social order’s establishment & preservation…justice is therefore the product of reason, not passion…the norms of justice must control and regulate passions, not vice versa” as A.K. Hesselberg said. The ubiquity of these behaviors of passion, whether well intended or not, means that the potential for them is greatest when power is concentrated, as is currently underway in the offices of our government today, despite the wise constitutional provisions against it.
