The Virtuous Republic, Part 3: What is a Virtuous Government?

Abstract: We have a problem, one that affects all Americans, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Trust in government is at historic lows, yet reelection rates in the House of Representatives is approximately 97% and over 90% for the Senate. I suspect this problem is symptomatic of two problems: we are losing the republic and we have nearly lost our sense of and understanding of virtue. This blog looks at the second problem: virtue in government. It develops a virtue assessment framework based on Plato’s The Republic, as discussed in Part 2 of this series and extended to reflect modern society. This draft uses measures with publicly available data that are congruent with Plato’s concept. Based on this drat framework, the US virtue score is 6.53 out 10. That is an unproven number and needs a great deal more investigation to ensure that it is accurate and meaningful. But if it is in the ballpark, it should concern all citizens of the Republic, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum.

We have a problem, one that affects all Americans, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Trust in government is at historic lows, yet reelection rates in the House of Representatives is approximately 97% and over 90% for the Senate. On the whole, there seems to be cognitive dissonance going in within the electorate and the political parties. The political parties understand the lack of trust, but does it mean anything if the reelection rates are so high? Do people collectively mistrust the government, but trust their representatives and chosen political party? Do representatives represent the electorate or their political party?

This disparity is widely known, but I have seen little, if any, discussion about what it means for a republic. Can we have a virtuous republic, let alone a republic under these conditions?

The founders of the US republic patterned on the Roman Republic. They used lessons they learned from reading Greek and Roman author during the classical studies. Overtime, we have diluted or eliminated some of their safeguards through constitutional amendments or simply ignoring parts of the Constitution we find inconvenient.

What I find really interesting about graph is it peaked with the Kennedy administration and started a major decline with Johnson—the power behind the Great Society. The Great Society was a key inflection point in the Powershift Series. The XVI and XVII Amendments discussed in Part 4 of the series powered and made this inflection point possible.

Perhaps the size question noted in Part 2 of this series in more a function of government size and superpower status than physical size. When vast amounts of money and power are at stake, the siren call of temptation gets far harder to resist. Even Odysseus, with his ears stuffed, might not resist their call.

Strong laws that constrain politicians and bureaucrats and severely punish them, as discussed in Part 1 of this series, are one step. Politicians can ignore or repeal any law they make. Virtue is the key to both short-term and long-term change. In the short-term, we need to get politicians to pass and enforce these laws and in the long-term to develop a virtuous society by teaching virtue, electing politicians that practice virtue and making virtue the default meme within society.

The tables below are a first draft of a virtuous government framework based on Plato’s The Republic and extended to provide great fidelity and coverage. It is also based on proven sources, such as the World Population Review for data input. Table 2 provides weighted scores for each factor. Each factor has a potential score of 10. Justice related scores, The Rule of Law and Corruption are weighted 3 given their centrality in the Platonic analysis. The total US score is 6.56 out of 10.

There are other factors to consider outside of these measures that may be harder to measure, especially across countries. These can include governments deliberately exposing unwitting citizens to hazards to assess their effects, governments engaging in unauthorized surveillance and seizure, government secretly overthrowing other governments for some perceived advantage in the game of states, and many others. Ideally, these are reflected in the corruption measure, but may not be.