A Guide to Governing for the Common Good: Law and Public Policy in the Classical Perspective

In previous installments of Logos Letter, I have advanced the following theses: (a) man is naturally a political animal because he only flourishes within a complete community; (b) the common good is superior to the individual good; (c) the common good consists in a form of happiness, namely, the virtuous and customary use of basic goods and services.[1] These theses provide the theoretical foundation for classical polity.

In addition to the conceptual vision of the state, real politics requires well-defined norms, institutions, and policies. In this essay (and others), I will outline the basic structure of political practice in the Aristotelian – Thomist tradition. This approach is predicated on a part-whole model of political community and a classical view of the virtue of justice.

In the classical view, political community is a perfect whole composed of imperfect parts and justice governs the part-whole relationship according to what is “due.” In this tradition, the “due” is defined concretely on the basis of the objective truth about the “other.” The “due” is what is proportionate to the other within a given relationship.

I have explained in previous essays that the common good of the political whole is superior to the individual good of the part. This is what is due to the whole from the parts. Accordingly, justice requires that the parts of the community serve the common good. In this capacity, justice is rightly called political justice because it animates the whole political community. This form of justice shapes foreign relations and national domestic policy.

Political justice directs the entire domain of international relations to the common good of the home nation. Of course, alliances and treaty organizations may be useful to the nation under certain circumstances. Nevertheless, it is not the business of the government to become involved in ideological crusades or misguided interventionism. It is not the task of national government to transform the world or make the world safe for democracy or any similar nonsense. Rather, the national government wages war, regulates trade and immigration, and signs treaties only if it advances the common good of the nation. This does not necessarily entail a hostile attitude towards other nations. Indeed, there may be situations in which the common good of the nation (the national good) is obtained along with a broader international good. And this is well and fine insofar as it goes. However, every government must remember that it wields authority for the sake of the common good of the nation. Indeed, a government that sold out the nation to foreign or international institutions would be unjust to its own people. Accordingly, classical polity jealously guards its sovereignty.

On the domestic policy front, political justice orders all things to the common good of the whole. For example, the government funds and oversees the recruitment and training of military forces, enforces national industrial regulations, and crafts various programs that will promote general wellbeing. In some matters, there will be little debate: the state must prohibit and punish fraud, forgery, treason, and the like. These are the necessary conditions of economic and legal order. However, other questions are more debatable. For example, tax policy is famously controversial, but traditionally falls within the domain of national domestic policy.

Taxes are direct monetary levies collected by the government for the sake of funding programs, e.g., infrastructure programs, education, and the like. In the classical view, such collections are justified in so far as they promote the common good; as such, they fall under political justice. For this reason, the government may levy taxes and determine the amount, timing, and structure (progressive versus regressive) of taxes.

The common good both justifies and limits taxes. The exact structure of taxes depends on many contingent factors, but since the common good requires the wellbeing of the whole including the less prosperous, one would generally expect to see the burden of taxes primarily imposed on the prosperous (individuals, families, and corporations) and tax benefits primarily enjoyed by the less prosperous.

In addition, political justice requires the government to frame laws for the sake of the common good and for citizens to obey these laws. At a more granular level, the primacy of the common good means that the business owner, soldier, teacher, and laborer must always prioritize the pursuit of the common good because this is what is due to the whole from the parts. The business owner funds the common good, the soldier defends it, the laborer builds the common good, and the teacher and intellectual adds truth, science, and the arts to the common good.

Public policy is also directed by distributive justice (often called social justice today) and commutative justice (ordinary legal justice). The former directs what is owed by the whole to the parts whereas the latter governs the relationship of the parts of the community to each other.

Distributive justice concerns the division of the total aggregate of goods and services within a political community. According to this form of justice, goods and services should be distributed according to merit and need. Regarding merit, those who more richly contribute to the common good deserve a greater distribution of good and services. From this perspective, usurers, pornographers, and merchants of vanity should expect to receive far less than firemen, teachers, and policemen. In addition, the common good requires that all members of society receive a level of goods and services that makes human flourishing possible. In this approach, the state must ensure — in one way or another — that everyone has access to what he or she needs. A state that allows widespread ignorance and starvation falls very short of the common good.

Distributive justice is flexible regarding the means of distribution. The three dominant models of distribution are command, market exchange, tradition, or some combination of these forms. One of the advantages of classical political theory is that is that it is not ideologically committed to one form of distribution; classical polity is flexible and pragmatic in these matters. From the classical perspective, the various forms of distribution are actually valuable insofar as they promote the common good, the wellbeing of all, under the present circumstances.

Nevertheless, since the common good requires the wellbeing of the whole one can hardly imagine that unregulated, profit driven markets would be sufficient. Indeed, this sort of economic arrangement is ordered to the individual rather than the common good. For example, we see that profit driven markets do not efficiently distribute affordable housing and healthcare. What is needed in the medical industry is decisive public action to eliminate inefficiencies, consolidate resources, streamline processes, decrease costs and risks through consolidation, et cetera. Under the present means of production, it is probable that the common good would require a robust array of publically regulated and funded services, including healthcare, poverty assistance, unemployment insurance, education, affordable housing and the like. These programs would be just because they would insure that all the parts of the community receive what they need and deserve.

As stated above, commutative justice governs the relations between the parts of the whole; this form of justice governs market exchanges, interpersonal exchanges like communication and marriage, and even involuntary exchanges like theft and fraud. In these matters, commutative justice ensures that each party in an exchange receives what is due to it. The underlying insight here is that no one should unnecessarily lose in an exchange or be exploited; in exchanges each should gain (or loose) something of equal value. Exchanges should be mutually and equally beneficial, and it should be obvious that this criteria is consistent with the wellbeing of the whole, that is, the common good. If the parts of society damage each other, how can the common good of the whole advance?

Of course, determining the value of goods and services is a matter of some dispute among economists and philosophers. For my part, I subscribe to the Thomist view that many factors contribute to the value of a product, including production costs, market demand, use value, and even the requirements of distributive justice. Therefore, there will be some variety in what counts as a just exchange. Nevertheless, reasonable, unbiased observers within the same society should be able to agree on a just exchange in broad terms. The upshot is this: voluntary exchanges within the community should be reciprocal.

In addition, Commutative justice also redresses involuntary exchanges like theft, fraud, and assault. Such exchanges are clearly unjust crimes; on one side, a part takes or destroys the good of another part; these actions introduce an unjust inequality. This sort of injustice is perfectly expressed by the symbol of the “scales of justice,” which are disturbed and unbalanced by unjust action. In such cases, commutative justice requires that the malefactor suffer a loss that is equal to the loss suffered by the victim. In a classical polity, this principle — the principle of retribution — governs the penal code and related policies.

In sum, the interactions of the parts of a community should be mutually and equally beneficial. Such an arrangement redounds to the benefit of all, increases bonds of friendship and trust, and builds up the common good. Where this fails, just retribution should be exercised to restore the rationality and reciprocity of the state. No doubt, these norms permit a wide latitude regarding concrete policies and rightly so. Nevertheless, commutative justice provides a sufficiently clear criteria for advancing the common good and avoiding faction, greed, and injustice.

In this essay, I have outlined the basic criteria for developing laws and public policy within a classical polity and provided a few concrete example, including redistributive tax policy, universal healthcare (maybe Medicare for all or something similar), affordable housing initiatives, et cetera.

One should imagine a highly organized and organic society that features reciprocity, mutual support, solidarity, and retribution where necessary to repair the complex unity of the whole. In addition, this society rewards true merit, insures those in need, and jealously guards its national sovereignty and interests. Of course, this is no utopia — absolute equality is neither sought nor desirable, — and those who depart from the common good will be sharply corrected or removed.

Classical polity rejects individual liberty, self-interest, or luxury as ultimate values; these are the values of the Enlightenment, liberalism, and capitalism; rather classical polity reveres solidarity, honor, and self-sacrifice. Above all, classical polity is a place of justice, the most excellent of the moral virtues and more glorious than the stars. (Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II.58.12). A worthy aspiration to be sure.

[1] In classical natural law theory, the virtues are the habits of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Prudence presupposes certain moral platitudes like, self-preservation is to be done, ignorance is to be avoided, and the like. Finally, custom has the force of law since it is usually an implicit rational judgment that redounds to the common good.