Biopower is inevitable and their critique of the state allows the private sector to assert a more destructive form of control.

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT has become very controversial in the United States. Many Americans misunderstand what government does generally and underappreciate the specific role that government plays in guaranteeing America's success as a nation. The US government has improved the lives of Americans in numerous ways. It provides income, food, education, housing, and health care supports for many, not just those in poverty. It ensures cleaner air, water, and food. It supplies the vast infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewage systems, etc.) on which economic growth depends. The government has stabilized the economic system through these activities and others, including the government's bailout of the largest banks and other institutions responsible for the 2008 economic meltdown. Without government action, that economic crisis would have led the world economy into a total collapse. 

The government also engages in activities that trouble many Americans, including domestic surveillance and repression and the monitoring and control of behavior considered to be immoral. The government's national security policies have also spun out of democratic control on many occasions, leading the nation into unwanted and costly wars and interventions. What the government does, then, is a complex mix of activities that includes many things that Americans support wholeheartedly, and others that elicit concern and criticism. This has been one of our main points in this book. It is distracting and confusing to paint with a broad brush when speaking of "the government." 

The Anti-Government Movement 

Still, many conservative commentators and politicians promote simplistic, anti-government attitudes, seeking to pit American citizens against their government-over which they still have many types of democratic checks- while remaining silent about growing private, corporate power. There has been a long-standing anti-government strain to American culture that has been easily manipulated into blaming government for many of the ills affecting the nation today. Americans actually embrace collectivist responses to the many problems they have faced over the course of the twentieth century and be"' [END PAGE 362] yond, accepting the often generous government contributions to their own success, while at the same time believing in a libertarian individualism that assumes people are solely responsible for their fates, good or bad. Americans are thus vulnerable to simplistic arguments about their government, and easily distracted from the larger issues of power this book has raised. 

Americans should be vigilant about possible abuses in the exercise of power. Differentiating among the government's many functions allows a clearer focus for such concerns, since not all government powers potentially directly threaten citizens. In addition, we have noted that concerns about the exercise of power should include both government and the business system, that is, both public and private power. The exercise of power is necessary and unavoidable in complex societies. Power is exercised in the public sector by government officials, and in the private sector by corporate executives. It is simply not true that only government exercises power. Nor is it true that the "free" market constitutes an arena free of power. 

One difference between the two forms of power is that public power is more visible, acknowledged, and easily criticized, as we can see in the strong criticisms of governmental power prevalent today. This difference is understandable, to an extent, since government can more directly interfere with one's freedom. Still, for many, a person's life opportunities, and the greater part of an individual's working life, are controlled by business enterprises that are not directly accountable to the larger public. The irony in this hyperawareness of governmental power and lesser concern for private corporate power is that a key attribute of public power is its potential responsiveness and accountability to democratic majorities. 

The exercise of public, governmental power is more scrutinized, and it is acceptable and expected that we criticize government, therefore making it more accountable. Governmental power is also just as necessary to our nation's success as is the economic system. It is not simply some contingent institutional force that can be done away with, in a spasm of anti-government rage. Both the government and the economic system are inexorably connected in such a way that each is dependent on the other, in necessary and unavoidable ways, for the other's achievements. There is no free market system without the use of government power. The so-called free market is simply not a freestanding entity, as many would have it. 

This book, by detailing what the government actually does, has been geared to laying the groundwork for a healthier debate about the role of government in our lives. Everyone likes some parts of what government does while disliking other parts. But many politicians today have been selling a fantasy that government represents the main problem that stands in the way of greater happiness for most Americans, and that therefore we must reduce the role of [END PAGE 363] government to some bare minimum, or even eradicate it altogether. As Grover Norquist says: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." 1 Such a flippant statement may simply seem to be hyperbole, but we must remember the amount of influence Norquist has in the Republican Party today. Jeb Bush was the only 2016 Republican presidential candidate not to have signed Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which obligates the signer to resist and vote against any and all tax increases. 

Nearly 1,400 elected officials have signed the pledge, including essentially the entire Republican congressional delegation.2 The antitax message is one of the most powerful trends in our current politics. It blames government for all our troubles and, as such, seeks to "starve the beast" so government cannot fulfill its functions capably any longer. Tax cuts are most often directed at the very wealthy, who thereby gain both more wealth and more political clout. First, this allows them to invest their savings in the rising amount of government debt (needed to replace the revenues lost to tax cuts), transforming these individuals' tax liabilities (income on which they otherwise would have to pay taxes) into an investment in government bonds, securities, and the like that pay them dividends. As Wolfgang Streeck discerns, "Not only is state poverty the investors' wealth; it offers them a golden outlet to invest their wealth profitably." Second, as major funders of the fiscal instruments that underwrite the government's debt, they become an important constituency of the modern state. In the eyes of government officials, the wealthy minority competes with and even shoulders aside popular majorities. As the government's debt accumulates, the creditors' claims on government officials often trump those of common citizens, magnifying what scholars see as the growing tensions between capitalism and democracy. As Streeck concludes: "The state as debt state serves to perpetuate [and deepen] patterns of social stratification and the social inequality built into them. At the same time, it subjects itself and its activity to the control of creditors in the shape of 'markets.' " 3 

Reductions in taxes deepen the amount of government debt and increase the leverage of the wealthy over any nation's politics. Such tax cuts also straightjacket government, reducing its ability to deliver the expected goods to popular majorities. Moreover, hikes in taxes and fees paid by the working classes are used to make up for tax reductions on the wealthy. Therefore, the more many Americans pay, the less they seem to get in return, fueling their increasing distrust and disgruntlement about the role of government in their lives. 

As a result of this process, anti-government voices have become the loudest and most prevalent ones in our politics, so much so that it has become difficult for many Americans to have a rational and coherent understanding of how necessary and significant the government is to our nation's success. This book [END PAGE 364] has been about providing some of the tools, understanding, and historical knowledge for interested citizens to gain a clearer sense of what their government actually does, in order to combat the simplistic thinking that has come to dominate political debates. The need for such knowledge is manifest, especially at this point in our nation's history, when recent polls have demonstrated that the public's trust in government is at historic lows. 

These polls, however, show something very different from a knee-jerk dislike of government. When asked about specifics, large majorities of Americans have positive views about much of what the government does, including ensuring that foods and medicines are safe, dealing with natural disasters, setting rules for workplace safety, preventing terrorist attacks, protecting the environment, ensuring access to health care and education, maintaining infrastructure, and strengthening the economy. Of the thirteen major government functions listed in the polls, Americans gave high marks to ten of them. And even the low marks involved Americans believing that more should be done with regard to ensuring a basic income for the elderly and helping people get out of poverty. Concerns about managing the immigration system received the lowest marks.4 

Any government is multifaceted, engaging in many diverse and even contradictory functions. As a result, it is difficult to generalize when we speak of what the government does. It does many things, and, in this book, we have attempted to come to grips with the most significant functions of the US government. It is essentially meaningless to pronounce blanket statements about "the government," or "what the government does." We can only know our own government, or any government, through an understanding of its specific functions. The polls cited above demonstrate that Americans appreciate many of government's distinct functions, approving much of what the US government does, while retaining a generalized distrust of "the government" writ large. 5