There is a longstanding debate on the right, which resurged online this week, over whether it is enough for government to merely clear space for people to flourish, or if it must actively promote the “common good.” Is mere classical liberalism — the securing of natural rights so that individuals can pursue happiness as they define it — insufficient, or even damaging, to this common good? If so, perhaps the state must take a greater role in guiding us.
The common good is a slippery concept, but my colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty helpfully defines it as something many once enjoyed — an inherited “social treasury” that didn’t need to be purchased. This treasury yielded what many Americans still conceive of as the good life: get a solid education, find a stable job with good pay and benefits, marry relatively young, buy an affordable house in a youthful area, have children, send them to a neighborhood school, and age peacefully in place so that you can help your kids follow the same path.
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