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In the fall of 2010, I heard the following comment on Fox News: “The government should spend more on the war in Afghanistan in order to fight terrorism. The problem is that the government has gotten into entitlements”  (e.g. food stamps, public housing, social security, medicare, medicaid).  This is distinct from saying that the federal government should concentrate on foreign policy and military, with entitlements being funded and decided by the states. Such a statement would be for federalism rather than about priorities.  Too often, it is difficult to discern whether republican office-holders are more interested in greater federalism or a different sense of government in general. The republicans are not saying they want a smaller government, for they want more military spending.  I believe the republican vision is for a different sort of government, rather than for a return to federalism (i.e., more of a balance of power/domains between the state governments and the U.S. Government). Republicans believe that government (regardless of the level) exists to fund foreign affairs and war…not to fund poor people.  That is, military contractors rather than poor people. I think this political ideology is fairly unique in the world today.  Certainly most Europeans in the E.U. view redistributive rights for the basics needed for living as a legitimate part of government.  In contrast, many in the U.S. believe that the market mechanism (i.e., resources as commodities produced and distributed by private enterprise) trumps basic needs (as the market does not guarantee that the needs are met, whereas a redistributive sustenance right does). Perhaps the basic question is whether any citizen of the United States should be allowed to go without necessities (basic food, shelter and health-care).  In other words, it can and indeed should be asked whether the right to survival (i.e., life) is part of the social contract of the American political society.  I suggest that the media and our representatives ought to participate in a sustained debate on this question directly, rather than deviating to particular hot-button issues.

According to James Madison in Federalist #51, “the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger” in the state of nature. Nor is the weaker secured against starvation and sickness.  Life, as Thomas Hobbes writes, is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” in the state of nature.  The social contract undergirding a political society is meant to alleviate the fear of the want of necessities (and self-defense) while working for the happiness of the members.  In other words, there is a right to shelter, food and medical care in a social contract that takes its members out of the state of nature; otherwise, the society is marginal as an answer to the insecurity that exists in the state of nature.

Therefore, I contend that those Americans who want to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making over $200,000 and cut unemployment compensation are essentially enabling their greed to compromise the social contract.  If that contract is weakened and some members of society placed back in the state of nature, then it is important for the wealthy to realize that their own right of property is based on that social contract.  In other words, cutting off food and shelter for others may free them up to take your property, for they are no longer protected by the social contract against the state of nature.  If sustenance as a right is abridged, then so too is the right of property, because neither sustenance nor property is guaranteed in the state of nature.

Hamilton writes, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertions of that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government.” Federalist Papers, #28, p. 178. Ironically, Hobbes espouses a broader right—that of self-preservation—even in spite of the sovereignty that he presumes should go with the monarch. Whereas self-defense is largely limited to repelling attack, self-preservation includes the right to sustenance, including food, shelter and medical care. Madison recognizes this right as “the great principle of self-preservation.” Federalist Papers, #43, p. 297. One might say that this right or principle is in the right of life in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The right to survive is antipodal to the state of nature, where life is dog-eat-dog. According to Madison, “the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger” in the state of nature. Federalist #51. So too, the weak individual is not secured against hunger and sickness, or homelessness.  Such life is, according to Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  Leviathan. So we look to government not only to further our happiness, but also to provide a net below which lies the raw state of nature.  This is essentially what government is for; human nature has a penchant for returning to nature, so governmental institutions must use coercion to sustain the social contract.
Madison looked to the State Governments to enact laws in fulfillment of this principle. Whereas the powers “delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined,” those “which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, [sic] and foreign commerce,” … the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which … concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people.” Federalist Papers, #45, p. 313. To the extent that the federal government is at all involved in public housing, food stamps and health-insurance, Madison would say that that government has encroached on the prerogatives of the States. He might conclude, moreover, that the balance of power in federalism between the general and State governments has been severely compromised or lost. Madison assumed that the State governments would be better administered than would the federal government, and that the people would side with their respective States.  To the extent that these undergirding assumptions are invalid, the federal balance is at risk.  To what harm?

The loss of the checks enabled by the balance of federalism means that the more powerful government can more easily act tyrannically at the expense of our liberties.  In other words, we can expect further encroachments by the federal government.  This is at the expense not only of our liberties, but of the inherent diversity that exists within the United States, which is an empire-scale union of republics.  We forget what we are at our own peril. Sadly, Madison assumed that the people would be ever vigilant in protecting the balance of federalism. Without this vigilance and electoral political power, federalism itself, as well as its checks and balance, is doomed.  It is, one might contend, already a fait accompli.

See: The Federalist, ed. Jacob E. Cooke, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan Press, 1961.