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Page 20
from Richard Ostrofsky
of Second Thoughts
Bookstore (now closed)
www.secthoughts.com
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The Constitution Act of 1867
authorized Canada’s parliament
to legislate for “peace, order
and good government” on all matters
not assigned exclusively to the
jurisdiction of the provinces. It is the
concept of “good government” that
interests me here. As the results of the
American election were announced,
I and very many other people wept
tears of joy at the prospect that an era
of conspicuously bad government was
about to be replaced by something
better.
What remains unclear and still
in bitter dispute is what a society
should hope for and demand from its
government. While it is true that no
one really likes to be governed – that
we all prefer that other people be
taxed and regulated for our benefit – it
remains the case that bad government
can work extraordinary mischief:
lethal mischief that kills lots and lots
of people. We submit to government
(if we do) only partly because we are
The OSCAR - OUR 36 th YEAR
AFTER THOUGHTS
What is ‘Good Government’?
afraid of what it can do to us if we
don’t submit. When it gets to that point
the opportunity for good government
has already passed. Rather, we submit
to government, even when it irks us,
primarily because the alternative
– contention culminating in violence
– is usually worse. That was Hobbes’
central point, and he was right.
From governance then, we hope
first of all for peace and order, but it
is not always clear how these are to
be procured. It may be useful then to
dig a little deeper into the question
of what “good government” really
means, what it can (and cannot) hope
to accomplish,
One thing we might learn
from history – conspicuously from
20th century history – is that when
government tries to reform society in
radical fashion, whether toward the
left or toward the right, it makes a
bloody mess. Accordingly, the central
task of government is not to do great
good, but to keep discontent spread
thinly enough that it does not erupt
into civil violence. Conservative as
this mind-set will be, it is not primarily
an argument for keeping the poor in
their place, but for allowing them the
wherewithal to make their own lives
secure, and personally rewarding and
meaningful to the extent possible.
To be sure, governments will always
want to keep the mass of their people
working steadily at dull, unglamorous
and none too well remunerated jobs,
but this can be done without grinding
their faces if the elites are not too
greedy. It thus becomes a task of
government to adjudicate the inherent
competition of interests between rich
and poor, and a task for the great
mass of ordinary people to organize
to ensure that government performs
honestly for society as a whole, and
not just as an executive arm in the
collective interest of wealth.
But the proper functions of
governance go much further: Through
their law codes, judiciary and police,
governments define and defend a
playable social game through which
the abundance of Nature is extracted
for human use. Today, there is the
additional task (by no means generally
accepted or clearly understood) of
defending Nature itself from selfdefeating
exploitation by what is,
after all, only a single species.
As well, through their regulatory
agencies, in consultation and
negotiation with relevant private
DEC 2008
interests, governments set standards
where standards are needed but
encourage experimentation and
competition where they are not. They
further the social games of production
by establishing the workable
conventions on which these turn, to
which future design efforts can refer.
Fourth and lastly, in occasional
flashes of genuine leadership,
governments endorse a direction for
advancement or progress of some kind,
and thereby mobilize the energies of
their peoples. The Egyptian pharoahs
set their people to building pyramids.
President Kennedy set his to the
project of landing a man on the moon.
Obviously, some of these projects
have higher costs than others, and
they bring different social returns.
When we try to imagine a world
that could govern itself, these are the
four specific functions that we must
keep in mind. We talk a lot about
globalization today, about the whole
world knitting itself together into
a single society. But we are a long
way from knowing or even thinking
seriously about the governance that
such a society will require – the
meaning ‘good governance’ for
mankind as a whole.