federal government

federal government

The Role of the Federal Government in Modern Society

1. Introduction to the Federal Government

Federal laws, for example, also govern areas such as telecommunications, gas and oil drilling, air and water quality, the environment, and the use of pesticides and other chemicals. The federal government plays a big role in people’s everyday lives. The federal government is ideal for certain things and often acts in a larger, grander way than the individual states could or would. In spite of the power of the national government, many other aspects of American life are also under the control of a surprising number of decentralized, smaller, and more localized governments.

The federal government has a number of key roles in our modern society, including providing for the national defense, ensuring access to virtually everything, granting money to help those in need, and regulating the economy to promote and safeguard the public good.

The federal government is the highest level of government in the United States. It is made up of three equal branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The federal government is powerful and it has authority over much of American life. Federal laws don’t just deal with things that affect people throughout the United States.

2. Historical Evolution of the Federal Government

The phrase “modern government” may also mean different things to different people. By modern government, it may be understood that both the functions and organs of government are determined and designed in accordance with social, economic, and political considerations that apply at the moment of each particular state. This is a doctrine that has gained great acceptance among philosophers and sociologists and is known as “Evolutionism”. From this point of view, there are no permanent standards by which to measure constitutions and government. A form of government should be seen as having developed out of another form regulated by changes in society. The right and fitness of a given organization of government depend on its suitability to the needs of the people at the moment.

The phrase “modern society” as used in this context may represent different meanings to different people. This is because it is certainly a relative term, and man, in his general approach to life, is always evolving. However, by “modern society,” it is generally understood to mean a situation where, due to educational improvement and increased contact of the citizenry with the wider world, certain social services are generally regarded as necessary. These services cannot be provided or may not be provided effectively or efficiently by the people themselves. Therefore, they delegate this responsibility to a centralized government with coercive powers to effect compliance.

Modern society and the federal government are generally agreed to be inseparable. Hence, to properly appraise any concept concerning the modern federal government, a good starting position would be the meaning of modern society and the functions it is generally agreed that a government should discharge in a modern society.

3. Key Functions and Responsibilities of the Federal Government

First, far and away the most basic responsibility of the federal government is the provision of national defense (including disaster relief). No other institution in the United States has the military personnel, equipment, training, or expertise necessary to do this important job. And no other entity has the moral and legal authority to defend the Constitution of the United States and its citizens. Absent the federal government, we would be a group of 50 separate nations, possibly in conflict at the slightest provocation. Interior versus exterior national boundaries are key components of our existence and of our ability to be productive economically and in our enjoyment of life’s rewards.

The federal government must fulfill several key functions and responsibilities in modern society. In each of the following areas, the absence of federal policy and action would have serious consequences that only the federal government can address, and it is numerically the most important public policy arena. While most people generally understand the importance of the key functions, they perhaps do not recognize just how central the federal government has become in playing a crucial role in modern society and why these functions have evolved so significantly in recent years.

4. Challenges and Opportunities for the Federal Government in the 21st Century

A good government does not merely assert its authority, but rather uses it in concert with other institutions, both public and private. The most important challenge facing government is the need to function on an increasingly decentralized basis. Departments and agencies need the organizational capability to think, plan, and work across traditional lines of government responsibility. If the federal government will take the lead, the structure of local government will follow. Within the federal government, individual employees must take the lead. They may need to become encouraged to take risks. They will need to have pride in the work of the federal government. They must not be frozen into patterns of behavior that stifle creativity and initiative, such as fear of errors, excessive reliance on precedent, or excessive aversion to risk in their work.

The government of the future must reconsider which services it will provide directly, in the traditional fashion, and which it will provide through some sort of network or alliance. Any large public body can generate enormous wealth, as can its workforce – if the organization is clear about its mission. But with a lack of broader societal understanding regarding the role of government, and added to that the “demographic and other structural changes that are transforming our society,” the federal government faces “historical challenges.” The American public expresses “deeply contradictory demands even as the institutions and political processes that are supposed to mediate those demands are under challenge” – in terms of the role of the federal government, citizens demand more, or expect less – and want more (or less) now.

5. Conclusion and Future Prospects

A complete liberal theory of government would help ground both what government can and should do. To avoid modern liberal disbelief and help modern democracy move, we need unifying principles. But precisely because we are pondering the nature of modern society and the proper role of government in anchoring that society, we should not expect that we will find stable answers that endure for long. Instead, we should expect that repeatedly we must ask the skeptical questions and, being liberal and thus necessarily open-minded, explore anew the fundamental principles and practice of the U.S. Constitution.

Orr views the proper role of government as determined first by the priority of the human beings and then their need for domestic tranquility. Rid of its theological trappings, that conception could fit very well with the kinds of arguments underlying this paper. He does not really discuss the potential modern disjuncture between his constitutional constraints and institutional realities, but that is my point. If the rhetoric of the marketplace quickens the greed in us all, then potentially the federal government must shift some of its roles and tighten others. At the very least, Orr suggests that we need to think fundamentally about what we are doing. These are important contributions toward rebuilding a liberal theory, both for government generally and its boundary control.