Despite living in the freest country on earth, Americans still display a palpable negativity and distrust towards each other. There are undoubtedly innumerable reasons as to why this is the case, but there is an agent, that while seeming unrelated, may be one of this developing phenomenon’s prime movers: big government. This article will not be making a case for small government for fiscal or cultural reasons, but rather simply from the standpoint that the bigger the government gets, the less we like each other. Civic organizations from churches and the Knights of Columbus, to parent-teacher associations have, as Robert Putnam famously explained in Bowling Alone, fallen apart, and a common sense of ‘American values’ seems no longer to exist. Lacking these ‘glues’ of social cohesion, it does not take much to slowly pull the community apart. The growth of government is both a major cause of this ‘glue’ being degraded and of the resulting collapse of social cohesion writ large, the latter of which will be the primary, but not the only, focus of this article.
The main reference point for the creation and the solution of all of the problems the country faces today has become the government, thereby making its control of the utmost contention. As power is concentrated, so are the forces of anger and hatred. The President of the United States was not always as powerful as he is today. In fact, the Founding Fathers intended the legislature, not the executive, to be the most powerful branch of the Federal Government. This remained so for most of the nation’s history until Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course, in times of war, be it the Civil War or World War One, the Federal Government and the presidency grew in power significantly, but it was generally impermanent. With the rise of FDR and his slate of New Deal programs, the Federal Government’s role and function changed forever. With massive government schemes ranging from Social Security and job programs, to extensive regulation and an attempted packing of the Supreme Court, the Federal Government ballooned in size and power. Much of this new power, while having been given by Congress, rested in the executive branch, which is the branch that did, and still does carry out and enforce congressional legislation. In due course, through Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, Nixon’s creation of the EPA, Obama’s Affordable Care Act of 2010, and more, the Federal Government and, importantly, the executive became inordinately powerful. There are plenty of arguments to be had for the efficacy of this mass shift of authority to the executive, but what matters is that this power grab helped to make the office of the president all the more contentious.
When the president has the power to almost unilaterally effect powerful regulations on issues ranging from abortion and the environment, to immigration and education, it should be no wonder that the contest for the office has become so vicious. People begin to place their hopes and fears for the future in the one man or woman who occupies that office. Because of the power that is concentrated in the hands of one person, the vitriol created over who that person should be serves only to divide Americans who are already lacking a ‘glue’ of social cohesion. People choose to find that cohesion in politics generally, and the president specifically. There is an almost cultish love for figures from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, which is not healthy for the country, for a candidate always runs the risk of failure. The fall of someone who was the object of a cultish love and a replacement for true social cohesion almost inevitably sparks anger. Good social cohesion comes from nominally permanent, widely encompassing beliefs and communities, of which a presidential candidate is neither.
The relative insignificance of the presidency through much of US history speaks to the point. Elections were undoubtedly contentious at times, particularly when major issues erupted, like slavery and the Civil War, but in general most election campaigns did not engender nearly as much division among the general populace as today. A reason for this might be because much of the population could not vote, but even at a time when the vast majority of the population had voting rights, in the 1920s, there was comparatively little contention over the presidency. In fact, the presidents of that era, in particular Calvin Coolidge, tended to run on a platform of small government. When the Great Depression struck, rather than waiting for a natural economic recovery, FDR was elected on a platform of big government, and his presidency was, unsurprisingly, marked by serious political divisiveness.
Additionally, the radical candidates that cause so much fear and division among Americans today would not be nearly as concerning or detrimental to the country if the presidency was not so powerful. It would be of much less consequence to have a radical president if the office did not have the ability to implement his or her policies on such a massive scale as could happen today. A Republican would have less to fear from a Sanders presidency, and a Democrat less to fear from a Trump presidency if each knew that neither man could radically alter the face of the nation.
The president is only the largest target for criticism, and may only be the consequence of the growth of the Federal Government as a whole. Similar to how the Founders intended the legislature to be more powerful than the executive, they also intended much of the responsibility of governance to be in the hands of state and local governments. Of course, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article VI, Section 2) dictates that the laws of the Federal Government are to supersede those of the states. However, the Founders also laid out the premises for the power of the Federal Government in the Constitution, which are quite limited by comparison to what it has snatched away in the 225 years since. Those powers not listed in the US Constitution were generally assumed to be left to the states, and while it would be difficult to propose that the Federal Government should stick only to the responsibilities directly outlined, it has certainly claimed far too many.
Like the division caused by an inordinately powerful president, an unduly powerful Federal Government produces the same result. As people focus their hope and hatred on the federal level, it also focuses them on all Americans. One can always move to a different state to avoid bad policy originating from a state’s legislature. If the tax law is not to one’s liking in California, there is always the opportunity to move to Michigan or Texas. If the Federal Government makes a law, there is nowhere to move, nowhere to hide. Thus, control over the Federal Government, which has become so incredibly powerful, becomes a battle for the very heart and soul of the country. There are always certain policy areas that should rest with the Federal Government, like civil rights, foreign policy, trade, and the military, among others, but that list should be kept as minimal as possible. It should be no surprise that as that list has grown, people become ever more desperate to control and place ever more faith in the Federal Government.
Big government also lends to the collapse of social cohesion through how it is exploited. People are opportunistic, it is simply human nature, and that will never change. Because of this, programs that the government offers, however well intentioned, will be taken advantage of, and this inevitably causes division. Opportunism in regard to government power is almost always at the expense of someone else. It is usually the taxpayer, as in the cases of freeloading, competition stifling tariffs, or the like, or the business owner in the case of mandated paid sick days etc. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, not the taxpayer nor the business owner, and when they are, anger and division results.
History lends much insight into this phenomenon, but an excellent example is an academic paper by John Connelly, The Uses of Volksgemeinschaft: Letters to the NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-1940, on the Kreisleitung (District Offices) in Nazi Germany. This is obviously not a perfect comparison, as there is clearly no similarity between Nazi Germany and the United States. What is useful is the underlying situation: that of a big government and the opportunism that results. The District Offices of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) were spread throughout Germany in nearly every locality. These offices, headed by Kreisleiter or District Leader, were granted the power to do almost anything assuming it was not contrary to the interests of their superiors. Citizens could contact the District Offices with any complaint they had, and often could acquire help in achieving what they wanted. Many took advantage of this opportunity, requesting that Jewish Germans be kicked out of their homes so they could move in, or denouncing another German in the hopes of getting him or her punished. It is not difficult to see the divisiveness this system engendered, nor the abhorrent results it created. The reason for utilizing such an example is not to make a direct comparison, but rather to point to the potential of powerful government and opportunism combining to create serious discord.
All of this helps to elucidate why a big government creates conflict and why shrinking it might alleviate some of the division, but a more concrete example is helpful to understand why a small government can reduce disunion and foster community. The BBC recently produced a short video chronicling developments in the town of Harrismith in South Africa, a country where racial strife and a corrupt government have produced significant problems. Harrismith, a relatively small town, is representative of an ever larger part of South Africa: a poor economy and the failure of government to provide even the most basic of services, like sewage. With the government unable to act effectively to solve the crisis, and with sewage backing up and other utilities failing, people of every stripe were forced to come together to solve the problem. The racial discord that so divides South Africa had to be transcended. Headed by black townspeople, with the help of wealthy white farmers who provided the capital and helped in the labor, the sewage system was repaired and other utilities managed. People worked together towards a common good, and had to look to their fellow man to solve their problems. Indeed, they could fix problems that the government utterly failed to solve.
Of course, this is taking small government to an extreme, and is in no way representative of a viable solution to social division. Nobody would propose kicking the government out of essential services or living in a sort of pseudo-anarchy, but the sentiment of this situation is what matters. When the government gets smaller, there can still be solutions to problems that would otherwise be relegated to a bloated state, and an increased sense of community is often a consequence. This fits well with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that every solution should be solved at the lowest level possible. What can be solved at the local level should not be solved at the federal level. The farther away the solution is from the problem, the less respect and care is paid to individual human dignity. Federally sourced solutions produce one-size-fits-all programs that are often out of touch with the needs of people located hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from Washington, DC. Local solutions are close to the problem and make the best use of resources, while giving people a greater sense of control and community.
The unity of the citizenry form the structural support of any nation, and if that unity disintegrates, despite the continued outward trappings of a state, the country will not stand the test of time. If big government is ignored, or grown yet further, it will likely result in an ever increasing deterioration, and possibly even the eventual collapse of American social cohesion. It would behoove the country to consider the costs of such a collapse and to act accordingly. We just might all like each other more if the government was smaller.