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Why Limit Government?

By Lawrence W. Reed

Someone once said that those of us in the business of free-market think tanks do a better job of describing Hell than we do Heaven.

As people who want to “limit” government, we are often perceived as naysayers. Thus, we must continually remind others that we are opposed to excessive government because we are in favor of some very positive, important things.

We want to limit government because we support freedom and the free society. Limiting government will maximize opportunity, enterprise and creativity. It also releases people to dream and have the space to bring those dreams to fruition for themselves and their families.

At the heart of our core body of principles with regard to government are these unassailable truths: Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.

Indeed, the more the political process steers government into areas beyond its principal mission, the less well it does those few things – like public safety – that we all expect it to do for us.

In 2001, Max Kennedy, the ninth son of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, flirted with the idea of running for political office. A New York Times Magazine story recounted his ill-fated attempt and how a handler pressed him repeatedly for a “take-away message,” something of substance that his audience would remember.

“What do you want people to take away from it?” his handler asked. The would-be candidate stammered and couldn’t think of much until finally he admitted: “I don’t know. Whatever it has to be.”

Welcome to the silly side of politics. It is characterized by no speak, doublespeak, and stupidspeak—the use of one’s tongue, lips and other speechmaking body parts to sway minds without ever educating them, and deceiving them if necessary. The serious side of politics comes afterwards when the elected actually do something, even if – as is often the case – it bears little resemblance to what they promised.

It’s serious business in any case because politics is the part where coercion puts flesh on the rhetorical bones. What differentiates politics from all other walks of life is that the politician’s words are backed up by his ability to deploy legal force on their behalf.

This is not a trivial point. Ultimately, there are only two ways to acquire what you want or get others that have hired you or depend upon you what they want. You can rely on force or voluntary action in the form of work, production, trade, persuasion and charity.

The important distinctions between civil society and coercion-based government explain why the Max Kennedy-types are the rule in politics rather than the exception. When customers are captives, the seller may just as easily be the one who whispers seductive nonsense in their ears as the one who puts something real on their plates.

Like it or not, people judge private, voluntary activities by a higher standard than they do public acts of the political process. That’s just another reason to keep politics a small and isolated corner of our lives. We all have so many more productive things to do.

Here are a few tangible recommendations for strengthening our efforts to limit government and enhance civil society:

Our side must work harder to relate to real people.

Forget the dollars-and-cents-only stuff. Putting a human face on issues we deal with shows both how runaway government inflicts real harm on real people and how a free society can produce a more abundant life for all.

Our side must get smarter with its rhetoric.

We should not allow ourselves to get bogged down in debating the fine points of every proposed expansion of government. Instead, we need to simply remind people that government, as a share of our personal income, is consuming five or six times what it did a century ago.

Our side must invest more in the issues where small victories can mean a lot.

Prevailing in battles involving school choice, personal retirement accounts and state government budgets will lead to victories across a broad front of issues.

Our side must be convinced that it can win.

We must be optimists. Pessimism is not only unwarranted, it also is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think the cause is lost, it will be.

We need to convince the world that if anything in human affairs is inevitable, it’s that humans will be the free beings their Maker intended. It is not inevitable that they will be ruled by know-it-alls. History is on the side of liberty, not statism.

— Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich., and an adjunct scholar with the Bluegrass Institute. This article is taken from the text of a speech given by Reed in April 2004 at the Heritage Foundation’s 27th annual Resource Bank Meeting in Chicago.

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