On Sunday, I saw that Rasmussen conducted a telephone poll. Fifty-nine percent of Americans agree with former President Ronald Reagan's statement that "government is the problem, not the solution." Since a well-defined understanding of government's place in society is absolutely essential for responsible citizenship, let's think about Reagan's statement. It is an emphatic declaration that, society's problems largely stem from government intrusion into private dealings. Reagan, as a politician, garnished core proposition with populism: Why should politicians far away in Washington reach out and try to regulate your life?
As the Rasmussen report demonstrates, this philosophy has become the dominant one in America; thus, it deserves a good, hard look. As a starting point, let's agree on the purpose of government; without some consensus on this, any discussion is going to go in circles. Let's thus take it for granted that government's job is to make society as well-off as it can be, whatever "well-off" means. Whether it does that by planning the economy, regulating it or staying out of the way entirely is the point under discussion.
So: is government the problem? Do society's ills largely stem from government intervention and regulation? It is, at least, clear that government can be a problem; consider authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany or the USSR. (Incidentally, the USSR is crucial to the political context in which Reagan made his proclamation, but since we're trying to evaluate the proposition on its logical merit rather than its political merit, we won't analyze this in-depth.) But the implication here is that government social intervention is almost always a problem, not just in certain cases.
To get a handle on this, let's bring empirics into the situation. What does the evidence suggest? First, consider the difference in our society between the Gilded Age, in the late 1800s, and the 1950s. During the Gilded Age - actually, from the inception of the United States until about 1930 - the federal government spent about 2 percent of GDP, with the exceptions of the Civil War and World War I. After World War II, the federal government has consistently spent between 15 percent and 20 percent of GDP. Even correcting for differences between income and technology, it seems clear that the situation of most Americans in the late 1800s is not preferable to that of those in the late 1900s.
What caused the change? And is it correlated with government spending? Partially, I think. There were two major changes in the early 20th century that significantly raised the ceteris paribus standard of living: the onset of the Progressive Era with former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft in the 1910s and the creation of a significant social safety net by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. The other significant contributor to the rise in material wealth over the century in question was, of course, the American economic engine. But rise in overall material wealth does not necessarily mean that the standard of living for most people rises proportionally: U.S. GDP per capita in 1792 was $1,050, and U.S. GDP per capita in 1892 was $4,800; did most people experience a nearly-fivefold rise in wealth? Probably not.
The other way we can get empirical evidence about the relationship between standard of living and size of government is by examining other countries. In particular, I'm talking about Europe: for example, France has a government over twice the size of the United States', as measured by proportion of national income (CIA world factbook). Is France a significantly worse place to live than the United States?
What's the deal here? First, there's an established trade-off between average growth in national income and size of government; second, there seems to be a correlation between government regulation and median well-being. At the least, there's no significant correlation between government size and decrease in well-being, as we can see by examining European countries with significantly larger per-capita government expenditures.
So is government inherently the problem? The evidence suggests otherwise. It seems, instead, that we should work to make sure government serves the people, rather than always assuming it does not. This is the harder path: it requires a responsible, informed and participatory electorate, rather than one who can simply vote for the candidate (or party) who promises the smaller government. Government may be a problem at times, but the solution is better government, not no government.
Neal Coleman is a junior majoring in math studies and writes 'The Bogeyman' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
