The Pitfalls of “Responsive Government”

Mr. Hughes is a Los Angeles area attorney in the Law Office of Richard N. Deyo.

Scarcely a day passes that we do not read or hear the cry for “more responsive government,” that government “meet the needs of the people,” that we “streamline government for efficiency.”

That these demands go largely unquestioned and unchallenged shows the extent to which the state has assumed a decision-making role and the degree to which we have relinquished our willingness to assume responsibility for the daily conduct of our own lives.

The call for efficiency in govern­ment is one we might expect in a society in which it has become ac­cepted policy for the government to make decisions in any and all fields of human endeavor and concern.

Thus has the individual lost much of the ability, willingness and op­portunity to exercise his own in­dependent judgment in the choice of his job, wages, method of educa­tion, and most other aspects of human activity. A moment’s reflec­tion will reveal the pervasive reach of government power. Both through choice and by default we have in­dividually and collectively decided that government is to be responsi­ble—and that we as individuals are not.

To this end we have molded a governmental system of special interest-group warfare. Each of us is but a member of this or that ethnic, racial, social, or economic group. Each group must, through its self-appointed leaders, agitate, propagandize and lobby for the advancement of its “rights” in opposi­tion to some “exploiter” or “op­pressor.” If one is candid in his ex­amination, he cannot deny that this pressure-group struggle is the spec­tacle of American government and society today.

Gradually we have abandoned the traditional and enlightened notion that we exist as individuals, that we must act as individuals, and that what we can and do achieve, we do as individuals. The tragedy of this abandonment is that it makes it more difficult or impossible for peo­ple to achieve, advance and prosper. With this erosion of individual responsibility, we lose the factor which provides human life with its excitement and substance.

Pressure-group warfare is gener­ally pernicious in that it has the ef­fect of directing human activity away from truly productive pur­suits. The direction is rather toward the wasteful practice of coercively obtaining economic advantage or position for one group at the ex­pense of another. Wealth and op­portunity are erroneously viewed as limited, requiring that one man’s gain be another’s loss. Creation and achievement are supplanted as primary objectives in such a situa­tion by efforts at confiscation and “equalization.”

Government fits nicely into this pressure-group scheme—indeed, it both thrives on it and concomitant­ly encourages its continuation and intensification. Being a nonmarket mechanism, engaging in fundamen­tally coercive rather than produc­tive activity, government can and does tailor its operations to carry into effect the demands of the predominating pressure groups. Only by doing so can government jobs and programs be justified and sustained.

This state of affairs differs radically from a traditional market economy and society. For in such a market economy, exchanges of services and commodities (i.e., wealth) are voluntary. And when exchange is voluntary, it means—in the subjective sense—a gain by both parties to the exchange. At least as important as this is the absence of coercion from the pro­cess (except where government has corrupted the market mechanism, a topic beyond the scope of this essay).

Thus, the symbiotic relationship of government and the special interest-pressure-groups brings on the call for “responsiveness in government.” The pressure groups demand it as a means of increasing the effectiveness of their activities, as only through government can they begin to achieve their coercive ends. The government encourages such demands as a means of justifying and promoting its programs. The fact that it cares little if at all if such effectiveness is enhanced is im­material. That the public in general and the pressure groups in par­ticular feel the change is forthcom­ing serves just as well to justify the government’s reason for existence.

“Responsiveness in government” then is little more than a new twist on an old theme—that of activist government and the gradual collec­tivization of society. It is a manifestation of the statist concept of governmental responsibility and greater unification of the state. The only difference is that the pro­ponents of “responsiveness” are demanding the ultimate—that gov­ernment be coldly efficient in its ef­forts to politicize and centralize all decision making, removing from the sphere of individual control all that can be extracted.

The antidote for the poison of “responsive government” is as ob­vious as it is difficult of attainment. We must come to understand both our nature and our responsibilities as individuals. Only as we do this can we begin to develop the crucial understanding of and belief in the sanctity and sovereignty of the in­dividual person and of his natural right to act out his life according to his choices, free of the coercion which government activity entails. It is as free individuals, acting as in­dependent agents, that we ex­perience our greatest personal glory, happiness and success. We can only achieve this satisfaction when we choose our own goals and direct our own action toward the pursuit of these goals. This op­portunity and unique aspect of life is gradually and often irrevocably lost by excessive unification of the state.