Mending Fences: Renewing Justice Between Government and Civil Society

First Quarter 1998

Excerpts from the 1997 Kuyper Lecture by Senator Dan Coats Delivered at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
October 30, 1997

In 1819, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson, asking, "Will you tell me how to prevent riches from being the enemy of industry? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?"

When the founders turned from dreaming to worrying, they worried about this: How could a free and prosperous people preserve a moral culture? How could a commercial republic, celebrating individual liberty and personal gain, cultivate concern for the common good and moral restraint?

Most people do not understand the paradox at the heart of the American ideology of republican government sustained by republican virtue. In this view, the survival and success of liberal public institutions—oriented toward liberty, choice, and tolerance—depend directly on the health of non-liberal or conservative institutions—emphasizing authority, limits, and moral absolutes. The endurance of civil liberties depends directly on schools, churches, volunteer associations, neighborhoods, and families that shore up the old democratic decencies.

It is increasingly clear that the quality of our lives as citizens depends on the character of our neighbors as human beings—their ability and willingness to conform their exercise of liberty to a set of moral rules. Every society depends directly and permanently on the intention of most citizens at most times to be good—not perfect, but good. "The most important change in how we define the public interest in the last 20 years," observes Professor James Q. Wilson, "has been a deepening concern for the development of character in the citizenry."

Government and Markets

More and more government actions involve the distribution of benefits to small groups of citizens, turning political debates into arguments over private spoils, not discussions of the public interest. It creates an atmosphere of shouting and suing, not deliberating—a political world of lobbyists and mailing lists and talk radio, inciting people to demand their rights and benefits. We have seen a rise in this kind of political activity, but it is not a sign of social health, because it has no connection to the common good. It is the triumph of selfishness, not the practice of political community. And it demonstrates how government can warp the idea of citizenship—turning it into what has been called a "citizenship of disgruntled claimants."

Government is the first powerful force that has complicated the essential work of civic education. The second cursed blessing is harder for a conservative to discuss, but still necessary Many Americans, particularly American families, find that the most disruptive force in their moral lives is not government. It is a pervasive market that aggressively sells an ideology of consumption, immediate gratification, sexual freedom, and resentment of authority. They find more to fear from Madonna and the moral anarchy of the Internet than from Model Cities and the Great Society.

Once again, we cannot downplay the accomplishments of free markets, which are the wonder of the age. They are history's most powerful tool to eliminate poverty, defeat disease, and extend life. And they make a moral contribution to every society that embraces them, justly rewarding risk, creativity, energy, and merit. But we also cannot downplay how markets can undermine the traditional institutions conservatives want to conserve.

Civil Society

[Both markets and government have their place. It would be wrong to expect that the conservative institutions of civil society could exist without them. But the opposite is also true, that markets and governments depend on the independence and well-being of civil society]

The state cannot directly rebuild civic institutions. Yet, particularly in some communities, we must find ways to encourage these institutions to renew themselves. The alternative is a destructive indifference to human suffering—a kind of Social Darwinism by default.

This has been my struggle in the last few years, as I have tried to translate some of these ideas into legislation. The result is the Project for American Renewal. It is not a government plan to rebuild the civic sector—a self-contradictory idea. It attempts instead to take the side of people and institutions who are rebuilding their own communities, and who often feel isolated, poorly funded and poorly equipped. The legislative components of my project direct attention and resources to community development corporations, religious charities, private schools for inner-city children, neighborhood watches, and communities trying to restore the legal importance of marriage and family. The goal, in the margin where it is possible, is to apply private resources of compassion and moral instruction to public problems, expanding the society while limiting the state.

It is my belief that a bold new agenda of public compassion should adopt this bold objective: to break the monopoly of government as a provider of compassion and return its resources to individuals, churches, and charities. I have tried to define an approach guided by a simple principle: in circumstances when government must act, it should always act in ways that strengthen, not undermine, the web of institutions that create community.

This approach, I believe and hope, is consistent with a great and noble tradition of Catholic and Protestant social thought, originating before the turn of the century with Pope Leo XIII and Abraham Kuyper. The parallel teachings of "subsidiarity" and "sphere sovereignty" have enriched our political debates with some basic principles.

1. There is a "common good" greater than individual rights, and society must actively and tirelessly seek it. Kuyper exclaimed, "We shall not be satisfied with the structure of society until it offers all human beings an existence worthy of man." Pope John XXIII, in a beautiful passage, defines the common good as "the sum total of those conditions of social living, whereby men are enabled more fully and more readily to achieve their own perfection."

2. Though society must seek the common good, society is not identical with the state. A healthy society, in fact, is composed of countless institutions that are not expressions of either politics or of the market—churches, schools, unions, fraternal groups, neighborhood associations, and other mediating structures. "State and society" said Kuyper, "each has its own sphere, its own sovereignty, and so one should not try to absorb the other." Pope John Paul II has written, "A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order... In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need."

3. A good, rough definition of social justice is the flourishing of these institutions—protected both from market individualism and from intrusive government. Pope John XXIII stated, "There is always wide scope for humane action by private citizens and for Christian charity... It is evident that in stimulating efforts relating to spiritual welfare, the work done by individual men and by private civic groups has more value than what is done by public authorities."

Creative Reform Today

I think this goal—"stimulating efforts relating to spiritual welfare"—is causing the most exciting, important debates in contemporary social policy. It is an objective that allows us to emphasize the civilizing, humanizing role of religion and morality in our social order without violating our commitment to pluralism. Many of our worst social problems will only yield to moral solutions: the renewal of parental commitment to children, the internal restraint of impulsive violence and aggressive sexuality, the return of public spirit and civic engagement. Mediating institutions teach these lessons. By supporting them broadly, government can promote moral answers to human problems without favoring or sponsoring any one moral or religious vision. The principles of subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty thus give us an insight into how government can encourage the virtue of a free nation and still leave it free--by encouraging the work of civil society, without overwhelming it with rules and restrictions.