The Best Theory About the Purpose of Government

National Strength, Competence, and Human Flourishing

What’s the purpose of a successful state? What’s the government’s purpose? What sort of society are we trying to bring about?

It’s tempting for those of us in the world of government reform to only think at the ground level, about individual policies and programs. However, before would-be reformers can fix something, they need a working theory of what their ideal version of the American government looks like. How do you know what needs to change until you first know where you’re trying to go? You need a working theory of the state.

Scholars and political philosophers have proposed different theories of the state throughout history. Each have different ideas about what a good society looks like, and what the state is supposed to do. All of these theories—from the Greeks and Romans, to medieval religious scholars, to Renaissance thinkers, to Enlightenment philosophers, to Marxists, to post-modernists, to many others—have different ideas about how to build a state and the goal of politics.

Here's my theory: the state is supposed to steer society into the middle point of three goals.

• National Strength

• Competence

• Individual Human Flourishing

You can think about these goals in a Venn diagram, with the goal of politics getting America into the middle area between them.

A good state is strong and competent, creating a space under which individuals can flourish.

This is what I think all of us who are reformers, political builders, and policy entrepreneurs, should be doing—working to get America into the center of this diagram. This is what independent politics, political reform, national renewal, and realignment theory should be about.

I. AMERICA NEEDS A STRONG STATE

A strong state means a state with the power to get things done. National strength is just another way to say capability. A strong state can build things quickly and efficiently. It can stop people from hurting others. It can accomplish things and enact its will upon the world. Some call this state capacity.

We Americans are naturally suspicious of the idea of a strong state, and for good reason. We created modern Western democracy explicitly because we learned from hard historical experience that strong states are susceptible to abuse and tyranny. Isn’t a flourishing society more likely under a weakened state, since it’s the state that has the terrifying power to arrest, spy on, and imprison us—leaving all the building and accomplishing to private institutions without those potentially abusive powers?

In fact, the evils of a state that’s too weak are far worse than the evils of one that’s too strong.

A weak state can’t help citizens, can’t protect them, and can’t accomplish things. For citizens to enjoy good lives, the state must be strong enough to protect them from foreign enemies seeking to conquer them, and powerful enough to push back against those wanting to exploit them. It must be capable of protecting its people from thugs, gangs, swindlers, charismatic grifters, and powerful institutions looking to take advantage. It must have strength to issue laws that are obeyed, including by the powerful and ruling elites. It can’t be riven by infighting and factions pulling in different directions fighting over power. To accomplish things, it must be able to get all its factions and aspirants to power working on the same page.

Weak states can’t protect. They’re rife with backbiting, sabotage, and undercutting of competent officials by rivals. They’re open to corruption. They’re often arbitrary and unjust, since with no means to enforce law on rulers, rulers do what they will. A good state isn’t a place where ambitious sociopaths prey on the weak, but a place of order, fairness, and rule of law. Weak states aren’t places of freedom, but of chaos and civil war. The people are exploited and abused under a weak state, even more than under a strong state, because there are more powerful predators chasing them but fewer guardians. Rome at the height of the Republic was strong. Rome by the end of the Republic was weak. Which Rome would you rather live in—which to you seems more prosperous, successful, and free?

That isn’t to say strong states shouldn’t make us nervous. For most of human history, strong states used their power not to accomplish worthy things but for tyranny and control. Strong states tend to see their citizens as subjects, and prioritize acquiring power and control over getting things done for the people over which they rule. Leaders confuse the state’s strength with their own power and control, so intentionally sabotage competent leaders as rivals. This is true of all organizations, which over time tend to become machines obsessed with extracting compliance and acquiring strength without regard to the purpose that strength is put. That’s why we need transparency and accountability and checks on power to ensure leaders don’t turn strong states into oppression machines.

A lot of Americans have a problem with this because they mistakenly believe all national power is bad. On the left, some believe all power is oppression, and they oppose on principle the idea of an America that can enact its will. Some on the right fear state effectiveness is the same as tyranny. They’ve convinced themselves the machinations of private power are always better, and that the state should never police or break up abusive private power. However, America’s Founders didn’t advocate for a weak state but an effective state that couldn’t abuse citizens. There were, to be sure, a few who wanted the state weak, like Jefferson, but most agreed with Hamilton, Washington, and Adams that the state must be muscular and strong enough in its capacity, but limited in how that capacity could be used against the people.

America’s weakness has become an impediment to fixing problems. America still can hold its own against outside powers—although that’s steadily eroding as foreign competitors gain edges in national power. However, it’s riven with in-fighting and no longer focused or capable of vigorous effort or acting with a common purpose. It’s no longer a machine with the capacity to act in one rational and coherent voice. It can’t accomplish things. It lacks the national unity to bind people around patriotism. No one trusts it to fix problems, do what it says, or tell the truth. America is weak.

Any movement to renew America should strengthen America. A weak state is not good. The state should be strong and effective, but controlled and put into the service of the people. This way it becomes a sturdy roof under which freedom and prosperity thrive.

II. AMERICA MUST SELECT FOR COMPETENCE

Just because a state is strong doesn’t mean it’s competent. In fact, most strong states in history weren’t competent at anything other than acquiring more power.

Competence is about the ability to execute one’s plan with transparency and integrity, accomplishing with excellence exactly what you set out to do. It means getting the best people where they need to be to make things work. It means finding people with talent and character, and instilling in them a sense of public duty. It means elevating those who work hardest and get results over cronies, cousins, obedient bureaucrats, mavens of office politics, box-tickers, and the other mediocrities that power too often likes to give positions and opportunities. It means allowing good people to accomplish their missions without dumb rules or interference or bad incentives, so they can bring you results. Then it means rewarding them for their efforts.

State competency also is about more than just an effective machinery of state. It’s not just the armed forces and bureaucracy that must be competent. State competency means a state that ensures the entire society is run with competence. Every institution in society must identify, prioritize, elevate, and reward competence—from the economy, to the sciences, to the arts. Companies must be competent. The media must be competent. Universities must be competent. It’s the state’s job to build a structure so everything is competent.

Many dictatorships, monarchies, and empires were strong. They could exert authority over citizens and impose their will outside their borders. They weren’t divided by petty infighting or civil war, but spoke with one united obedient voice. They had the capacity to make plans, execute them, and accomplish what they wanted. What they wanted to accomplish, however, was incompetence. There’s a reason for this—too many states in history falsely believed acquiring and maintaining strength and competence were at odds. Strong states usually fear brilliant people free to accomplish amazing things as rivals they can’t control. States worry about people outside the halls of power gaining the tools to rise, potentially replacing the people now in charge. Often, states no longer even care about whether citizens are living good lives, so long as the state is strong and can extract compliance. It’s easier to maintain strength if all your resources and attention go only to acquiring power.

In fact, the number of states in history that actually were competent is vanishingly small. Rome at the height of the Republic was a master at elevating competence, which is how a small city state managed to conquer most of the known world. China under the Tang dynasty instituted a merit system of examinations for the imperial bureaucracy, creating China’s greatest golden age. The height of the British Empire managed a seemingly impossible merger of aristocracy, democracy, and commercial management to build an efficient empire out of a tiny island. America during the twentieth-century Pax Americana married meritocracy with democracy to build a democratic empire. Most strong states, however, have only been excellent at one thing—acquiring power and maintaining it.

America right now isn’t competent. The state isn’t competent. Our corporations aren’t competent. Our great institutions aren’t competent. They’re not total disasters, but aren’t nearly as effective as they should be. They don’t elevate the right talent. They don’t instill good character. They don’t accomplish the missions they’re entrusted to do. They’re very good at acquiring and maintaining wealth and power for the people in control, but not good at doing whatever the purpose of their institution is to do. A movement to restore America must restore not just national strength but also national competence.

III. THE PURPOSE OF SOCIETY IS HUMAN FLOURISHING

The final requirement of a successful state is it must foster individual human flourishing. The purpose of a strong and competent state is to use this power to help individual citizens flourish.

What is human flourishing? It’s creating lives of safety, material comfort, dignity, and meaning to every citizen.

• The state must create material prosperity for its people and share this prosperity with all its people.

• The state must allow its people to be themselves according to their own individual terms.

• The state must allow individuals a sense of self-determination and meaning.

• The state must unleash people’s ability to build things, create things, discover things, and otherwise purpose their own self of purpose and dreams.

Human flourishing requires a strong and competent state. People can’t flourish under instability and disorder. People can’t flourish when they’re prey to predators. People can’t flourish amid a society that can’t build things or produce. People can’t flourish amid a society that’s incompetent, doesn’t do the things it says, or can’t accomplish the goals it sets out. People also can’t flourish amid a society that doesn’t put the best people where they’re needed and reward them for their efforts. A state with strength and competence is needed for citizens to thrive. It must root out predators. It must fight corruption. It must foster competence with a fair and transparent system with a level playing field. Through strength and competence, the state must act as an umbrella over citizens creating conditions under which they flourish.

Americans no longer believe they’re flourishing. They no longer believe their state is creating conditions under which they individually can flourish. The end goal of any movement for reform should be to rebuild a society in which individual citizens flourish.

HOW WE FIX AMERICA

This theory of the state isn’t academic. It’s meant to serve as a blueprint for reform. We’re in the heart of a major realignment in which our parties, our politics, and our society will be remade. Those of us seeking renewal and reform want to ensure this moment ends with better systems. To do that, we need a map to where we need to go. There’s a reason most reforms to help people flourish rarely, if ever, work. They’re operating under a state and society that isn’t designed to let them work. That state is neither strong enough, nor competent enough, to carry out these goals, nor motivated to allow people to flourish. They therefore remain vain words on paper. Problems are never solved.

This should be our guidepost when designing an agenda to rebuild a better America:

• Make America stronger. America should be effective. It should be united. It should be able to accomplish things. It shouldn’t tolerate in-fighting that handicaps its ability to act. When people ask America to do something, they should feel confident it can and will be done.

• Make America competent. We should ensure America is again a place where the right people with the right character get into positions in which they can make a difference. We shouldn’t tolerate mediocrities, box-tickers, nepo babies, or office-politickers who can’t and won’t get things done. Unleash the best among us to create, build, and lead us where we need to go.

• Ensure society serves individual human flourishing. The state should be a space under which individuals can achieve their dreams on a level playing field. The goal of the state isn’t simply to be strong. It’s to use that strength to help people achieve things, grow, and live good lives.

When we talk about a new and independent politics that normal Americans will support, I think it looks something like Alexander Hamilton’s and Teddy Roosevelt’s idea for muscular democracy. We want a strong and competent America that protects and allows for individual flourishing. That’s a successful state.

What is your theory of the state? Join the conversation in the comments.