The Economist reports that 76 countries have or will hold elections in 2024—the largest election year in history.[1] Just what are the duties of a government? After serving in public office and after witnessing the demise of the Roman Republic, Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote a work on ethics titled ‘On Duties’ (De Officiis). In it, he included a section in Book II on the duties of the state, particularly those duties that relate to property. Some thoughts from Cicero (I have divided them into 8 points) may be worthy of consideration today.
1. A state will assure
public services sometimes to the entire citizenry and sometimes to some
individuals. In the latter case, the
government must take care that what is done also benefits the state (II.72). In this statement, Cicero addresses the
concern that a government not favour one sector of society or govern by privileging
certain social groups without benefitting all in some way.
2.
Administrators must be careful to respect individuals’ private property
rights. Cicero makes the protection of private
property a fundamental duty. He says, ‘For ... it is the peculiar function of the state and the
city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own
particular property’ (II.78).[2] His argument for this is that
the chief
purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments
was that individual property rights might be secured. For although it was by
Nature's guidance that men were drawn together into communities, it was in the
hope of safeguarding their possessions that they sought the protection of
cities’ (II.73).
3. Cicero
further says that the state must not pursue a policy of equal distribution of
property (II.73).
4. In addition to the laws and courts protecting private property, the state should also take care that the poor are not oppressed in their helplessness on the one hand and that the rich are not deprived of justice in recovering their property out of envy for their wealth (II.85).
5. The state
will sometimes be in such great need that it will have no choice but to levy a
property tax, but it must do everything possible to plan property so that it
will not have to resort to this measure (II.74).
6. Government
officials must take measures to assure ‘an abundance of the necessities of life’
(II.74).
7. Public administration
and service must avoid even the suspicion of being self-seeking (II.75). Cicero gives a number examples:
a. Bribery
and extortion, pillaging and plundering allies (II.75),
b. a
general’s self-gain when pillaging an enemy after defeat (II.76),
c. a
governing official’s selfish profit from his exercise of office rather than
exercising self-restraint and self-denial (II.77),
d. passing
laws to drive people from their property, cancelling debts to creditors’ loss
to the borrowers, disrespecting property by doing away with equity (II.78),
e. redistribution
of property long in a family’s possession without hearing each case (II.80), rather
than allowing some to retain the property but requiring them to compensate
those disenfranchised (II.81) and requiring others to relinquish their
possession to restore social harmony (II.82),
f.
dividing citizens rather than looking out for all with impartial justice, such
as when allowing some to live rent free in others’ property (II.83),
g.
abolishing debts: ‘And what is the
meaning of an abolition of debts, except that you buy a farm with my money;
that you have the farm, and I have not my money?’ (II.84).
8. The government 'must strive by all means, in peace and in war, to advance the state’s power, territory, and revenues' (II.85). While this wording is surely uncomfortably unethical (it seems to justify unjust wars--which Cicero opposed elsewhere), even if it is realistic in history (think of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in our day), it does bring up the concern of a state to seek interests that benefit its citizens. Officials are to put the prosperity of citizens above the prosperity of other states. Imagine a country's governing officials using power to benefit non-citizens over citizens (not difficult to imagine, is it?!).
Having given several examples in history of statesmen who
have accomplished such duties, Cicero concludes:
Such service calls for great men; it was commonly rendered in the days of our ancestors; if men will perform duties such as these, they will win popularity and glory for themselves and at the same time render eminent service to the state (II.85).
Cicero's point is that one's reputation in government is linked to eminent service to the state and is therefore a motivation for serving well. Over against using an office for self-gain and not serving the citizenry or state, wanting to achieve popularity and glory through service is a good thing.
When Paul writes
about government as an institution appointed by God (Romans 13.2), he is not
saying that whatever a ruler does is justified because he is God's appointed
authority. He rather has in mind that, as an institution, government
provides an important and needed service, and authorities have the duty of justice to perform. Cicero says,
It is, then, peculiarly the place of a magistrate to bear in mind
that he represents the state and that it is his duty to uphold its honour and
its dignity, to enforce the law, to dispense to all their constitutional
rights, and to remember that all this has been committed to him as a sacred
trust (De Officiis 1.124).
What Paul says
implies such a duty, and, if one fails to do so, one is failing to perform what God has
established one to do: to exercise the sword--that is, justice. (This is
not a statement about capital punishment!) Paul says that the official in
authority in government 'is God's servant for your good' (13.3)--just as one's
own conscience is an inward authority for one's own good (cf. 13.5).
[1] ‘2024 is the biggest election year in history’, The Economist (13 November, 2024);
online 2024
is the biggest election year in history | The Economist (accessed 11
November, 2024). Some elections will be
held in authoritarian states and therefore are meaningless, whereas others are
more democratic.
[2] Cicero, De Officiis, trans. Walter Miller (London:
William Heinemann, 1913).
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