> We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitutional scheme to think that the Framers implemented "limited government." The federal government was indeed constituted as one of limited powers, but it was created against the backdrop of the state governments, which were conceived to have inherited all the powers of the British sovereign, limited only by their own constitutions.
You can invoke the Constitution to argue that some particular policy is better implemented at the state level than the federal level, but it is incorrect to say that this or that end is not the function of the federal and state governments taken together. We live, by design, in a democracy: the ends of government are whatever we want them to be, subject only to the limitations outlined in the Constitution.
I'm more of a Federalist--confusing name for an important concept. But I don't think that's what we're talking about. It sounds like we're disagreeing with what constitutes "general welfare" as you highlighted.
Ok, where do you draw the line in modern society? If you want to invoke the argument "what would the framers have wanted?" then what do you think they meant? Who can limit the definition of "general welfare" now. All you need is a bunch of loud people for any random issue, then it becomes a general welfare issue.
Yes, the state governments should have more power--I assume that was your point.
> Yes, the state governments should have more power--I assume that was your point.
No, my point is that your original statement ("it's certainly not the function of the USA govt to provide anything but what's defined in the constitution") is wrong. That might be true of the federal government, which is limited in scope, but that is not true of the state governments, which are not and were never conceived to be. The state governments can (try to) provide, almost without limit, whatever voters want them to provide.
Since the State (in the academic sense of the word, with capital S) can comprise institutions at multiple administrative levels (eg state and federal), it is entirely possible to have a federal government with limited powers against a backdrop of strong state governments.
Indeed, some legal historians like William Novak have argued that many of today's widespread notions around the historicity of "limited government" and the early republic are largely revisionist myths [1].
[1] http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/labor/documents/TheMyth...
That is exactly what the framers wanted from the federal government. Your following sentence directly contradicts your entire point. We're talking about FEDERAL POWERS.
In any case, there's nothing contradictory in that statement. "Limited government" is a term with specific meaning in libertarian and neoclassical circles. It refers to a society in which the government, which may be democratically elected, has a limited range of powers and can only pursue certain ends. In such a society, the majority cannot vote to pursue a particular end if it is outside the proper scope of government.
The framers did not implement "limited government" in the U.S. They created a limited government, the federal government, but only against the backdrop of the un-limited state governments. In the U.S., the "government" (between the state governments and the federal government), can pursue nearly any end that voters might wish to pursue. It is, together, limited only in scope by certain Constitutional rights. The limited nature of the federal government is just a tool to divide power between the state and federal levels.
1. You said Increasing overall production doesn't necessarily do anything for the lot of the median person.
Prove it. Provide sources. This is contradictory to the past 100 years of civilization.
2. You said In a democracy, where the interests of the majority are paramount, a policy that reduces overall production but leaves the median person better off could be rational.
Have you ever heard of "Tyranny of the Majority"? What if the majority wanted slavery? Would you still agree with your argument? We don't live in a democracy in the US--it's a simple way to communicate public participation in society, which is needed. You seem to be mixing stats and political metaphors with no coherent point.
Finally, I'm confused with your last assertion that policy that reduces overall production but leaves the median person better off could be rational. How is that rational? Then again, humans aren't rational so maybe I'm mistaken.
I'm happy to consider your opinion, I just don't understand what you're trying to say.
> Prove it. Provide sources. This is contradictory to the past 100 years of civilization.
This is a purely logical statement that does not require sources to prove. Imagine a society with 9 people, and 90 units of production, each person getting 10 units. Then imagine an improvement where total production goes up to 120 units, but the extra units are distributed so that each of the top three people get 20 units. Thus, not all changes that increase overall production necessarily improve the lot for the median person.
> Have you ever heard of "Tyranny of the Majority"? What if the majority wanted slavery? We don't live in a democracy in the US--it's a simple way to communicate public participation in society, which is needed.
You've got it backwards. We don't just have public participation in society, we have rule by the will of the majority, through elected leaders. The phrase "tyranny of the majority" is not synonymous with "majority rule." Rather, it refers to the exceptional case in which the majority uses its authority to abuse minorities. In the U.S. protections exist to prevent such abuse, but those are exceptions to the general rule that the majority is in charge.
In a system of limited government, the majority can express it's will through the government only in certain limited ways. But in the U.S., the "government" (state and local together) have nearly unlimited scope. In the U.S., the majority can express its will in nearly any way it wants, limited only by certain individual rights.
> Finally, I'm confused with your last assertion that policy that reduces overall production but leaves the median person better off could be rational. How is that rational?
Go back to the second scenario above. 9 people, 120 total units of production, with everyone having 10 except the top 3 people who have 20. In the next year, the people vote to change the rules so that total production is 111 units. However, that production is distributed so everyone has 11 units, while the top three people have 15 each. Thus, you have a scenario in which overall production is lower, but six people are better off and three people are worse off than the year before. In a democratic society, this is a totally rational policy.
Perhaps, but if you consider the past 35 years in the US (and Britain, to a lesser extent), that's exactly what's been happening. It is quite counterintuitive and hard to fathom, but in fact median incomes and wages today have not risen at all since 1980 (!) despite all these years of GDP growth and a steady rise in productivity, which has tripled since then and previously moved in tandem with [1,2].
Put in another way: simplistically, if US household income had risen along with productivity (as it did ever since modern records began), today the national median wage ought to be around $80,000 and median family income around $150,000 (in today's dollars!); and the still ongoing personal computer revolution would have seen people's wages nearly double within a decade.
Sounds preposterous, but that is what robust economic growth typically looks like.
[1] http://stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/productivity-and-rea...
[2] http://stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/real-income-growth-f...