It is very easy to confuse society, state and government, as if they were just different denominations of the same reality, represented by its group of citizens. This confusion is interesting even to those in charge of government, who proclaim themselves to be the incarnation of the interests of society. But distinction is needed. In a broad sense, it is true that the state can be understood as society itself, while structured and endowed with sovereignty. It covers both citizens and government and is more or less equivalent to a country, as when we refer to Brazil, the United States, and France in their entirety. On the other hand, others prefer to call governments the part of society that specializes in the pursuit of the common good, that is, as the formal group of bodies and people officially dedicated to public management. If one adopts the first understanding, the purpose of society and the purpose of the state identify with each other, because we are talking practically the same thing. If the latter is adopted, the question arises: does the purpose of the government (or the state, understood more restrictively) have the same scope as the purpose of society? Should a state's government only protect civil liberties, promoting security, peace, freedom and justice, or should it have additional purposes?
Our starting point is the definition of democracy and the reasons why we must defend it without rest. If the great value of democracy lies in the fact that it is the only form of government that fully respects human dignity and allows its citizens to be the authors of its destiny, we must conclude that no more restrictions on the ability to define this destiny should be imposed than what is strictly necessary. That is, through voting and other forms of participation, the population, society, must be able to choose the paths they want for themselves and, through their government, to operationalize them without excessive restrictions, namely, only with the restrictions required to preserve the dignity of each and every one.
“How far does majority power go?''
Basically, the question is: how far does majority power go? This issue and the immediately preceding statements are relevant because important thinkers have introduced rather restrictive conceptions on the purpose of government - conceptions, however, well elaborated and valuable, which deserve to be analyzed. These are theories, by the way, that are gaining more and more fans. Consider, for example, John Rawls's "political liberalism" of an "anti-perfectionist" nature (we will clarify the meaning of this term), or Robert Nozick's libertarianism, which is also anti-perfectionist.
The freedom of individuals and the notion of justice are the fundamental points of the current philosophical debate, as it has mainly been happening in the Anglo-Saxon environment, on the norms that govern society. Many contemporary theorists, including those cited in the previous paragraph, understand that the purpose of government is simply to promote peace, freedom and justice. Anti-perfectionism consists precisely of the thesis that rejects any possibility of the government adopting, promoting or stimulating a certain comprehensive conception of what is good, beautiful, or valuable (be it the Liberal, or Marxist, or Kantian, or Christian, or Islamic conception etc.) The government should be politically neutral in relation to these or any other worldviews.
It is difficult to establish the exact scope of this thesis. If it is taken literally and taken to the fullest extent rigorously, a practical conclusion would be the blocking of any sectorial policies of economic or cultural stimulation. Public power, for example, could not support a symphony orchestra, a ballet company or some other artistic event considered important, but which does not have so much prestige with private sponsors. It would be favoritism, a privilege, to that conception that understands that classical music - or whatever is chosen as the incentive - deserves special attention.
"The freedom of individuals and the notion of justice are the fundamental points of the current philosophical debate"
The government would not be able to even promote a determined and specific economic vocation. Imagine a region that has tourism potential, or agribusiness potential: public power would be prohibited from encouraging these activities; would have to allow them to develop on their own and any stimulus policies should be general, applicable to any sector. One might even argue that if there is a genuine vocation, it will flourish without the government having to help it. But why can’t public power offer its contribution in its own right, especially if the population understands that help is important?
These examples show that the anti-perfectionist thesis, taken strictly, creates a government that would be tied, even if the population perceived the necessity of the state action in some area.
Rawls's liberalism, on the other hand, like that of other current thinkers, such as Ronald Dworkin or Richard Rorty, is a liberalism of social tendencies, which admits strong state intervention for patrimonial and egalitarian policies promoted in the name of justice. This is the case, for example, of quotas in education or income distribution policies. The acceptance of these interventions is what distinguishes this group of libertarian thinkers from libertarians, who, like them, defend state neutrality with regard to comprehensive conceptions of good, but reject egalitarian interventions.
Both the liberal view of the anti-perfectionist and the libertarian, albeit interesting, seem excessively restrictive and therefore misleading. And this is either by the thesis of "neutrality" as or the comprehensive conceptions of the good, that both adopt, or by the complete rejection of social initiatives of equalization, which only the libertarians defend. In reality, these trends do not, in our view, give an accurate account of all the freedom that should belong to society, either directly or through government, to carry forward their projects for the future. The role of government, therefore, is broader and includes other material values to be pursued, beyond peace and freedom, and justice, too. We do not see why society cannot define its course and make choices, relying on the instrument, which is the government.
"The role of government includes other material values beyond peace, freedom and justice, to be pursued”
This is where advocates of another strand of liberalism, called "perfectionist," like Joseph Raz, understand that the anti-perfectionist view restricts the role of government to a too small a core of competencies, which does not seem compatible with what is intuited to be that role. The purpose of society is the promotion of the common good in its entirety. It is true that this totality does not belong to the government (otherwise we would have a totalitarian government), but it does not seem reasonable that, within the limits of the Rule of Law, it cannot act subsidiarily for more "material" ends or objectives (so called in opposition to the merely "formal" objectives of peace, freedom and justice.) The government of a country, which still has failures, is the translation of the majority vote, must necessarily has concrete material purposes, which involves a future plan, a development project and concrete choices that induce the flowering of certain economic, cultural or artistic vocations.
This does not mean defending an interventionism that assigns many purposes to the government. There are insurmountable limits to its performance. Even so, it seems clear to us that there must always be room for perfectionist actions and dimensions. Consider the possibility of the state subsidizing more sophisticated cultural initiatives. There is no doubt about the legitimacy of such a subsidy, provided, of course, that the priorities of each community are met. Another clear perfectionist dimension is the choice made by a community regarding a particular development project. Society, through its government, has the right to decide what industrial policy it will adopt.
The share of the common good in government charge has, as well as that of society, perfectionist dimensions that are inescapable from a truly democratic conception. What we cannot lose sight of is that the role of government is subsidiary: it will act on what people, individually or in association, cannot do on their own. The promotion of subsidiarity and the recognition that there are dimensions that are individual and therefore protected from state action, are fundamental to differentiate the perfectionist ideal from any other view that proposes a more active and interventionist state.
Perfectionist public policies are necessary for the realization of the common good. What is wise is to always understand how to implement them without unduly reaching the sphere of the citizen.