By: Michael Hayes

In the wake of George Bush’s reelection, many Democrats want their party to change its stance, or at least its image, on one issue or another. Merely changing positions on some policy issues will never solve our problem, however. Democrats need to clarify who we are and what we stand for. We need a public philosophy.

Right now, the public sees Democrats -- accurately -- as committed to strong government. Unfortunately the public also sees Democrats as in love with unlimited government. Sometimes it seems the one thing all Democrats have in common is a commitment to expansive government. Certainly Democratic pundits have reacted to electoral defeat by searching for more appealing ways to market government, which is usually treated as if it were an end in itself.

Properly understood, however, government should be a means to larger ends. We need to get clear in our minds just what the proper purpose of government is. If we are ever going to be competitive again, Democrats simply must convince voters that we recognize some limits on the role of government.

More specifically, Democrats must defend activist government as a means to the promotion of a free society, not as a vehicle for achieving a centrally directed society. Too many contemporary Democrats view the state as the primary source of vision and direction within society. Within a healthy society, however, the state does not provide people with their purpose and meaning. To the contrary, society does not have (and does not need) an overall vision identified by politicians. Rather, individuals should be as free as possible to pursue commerce, learning, evangelism, or anything else they choose to do so long as it involves no harm to others. The job of government within a truly free society is not to tell people what they should care about but rather to help them pursue their own projects, stepping in only where one person’s pursuit of happiness impinges on another’s.

Committing our party to the promotion of a free society is not a prescription for small government, or for turning the Democrats into a second Republican Party. Rather, this is the authentic Democratic tradition. In the New Deal era, the federal government expanded in both size and scope in response to the Great Depression, but Democrats used activist government then, and in the decades that followed, to preserve a free society, not to usher in a centrally directed society.

Contemporary Democrats understand that a free society requires vigorous government to promote economic competition, to offset the power of giant corporations, to deal with air and water pollution, and to provide for education, among other things. Government can be strong and effective—indeed, it can be indispensable—and still operate within limits.

Polls suggest that many voters understand this. Democrats manage to lose elections even though most voters are closer to our positions on the issues. This is because voters equate our support for activist government, which they like, with a desire for unlimited government, which they properly fear.

The nation desperately needs at least one party that understands the critical role of government in maintaining a free society. Contemporary Republicans clearly don’t grasp this. To the contrary, they oscillate between efforts to strip the federal government of important powers and a desire to use government to achieve conservative ends. When President Bush says the job of government is to help people realize their dreams, he places his party squarely in support of a free society. But he just as surely embraces a centrally directed society when he identifies the United States with a mission to export liberty by promoting democracy around the world.

There is plenty of room within this vision for debate over which policies work best and whether some should be avoided altogether. The key is to keep in mind at all times that the proper end of government is to help its citizens pursue happiness rather than exploiting them in order to achieve overarching goals imposed from above.

Michael Hayes has been Professor of Political Science at Colgate University since 1984. His most recent book is The Limits of Policy Change, published by Georgetown University Press in 2001.