Total Justice

4. The Security State

4 THE SECURITY STATE AsWE MENTIONED, the most striking aspect of the modern state is its overwhelming size. Government is big in every dimension : it has the most money income; it spends the most; it has the most people on its payroll. Modern states handle immense amounts of wealth; anywhere from a quarter to a half of the gross national product flows in and out of the coffer of the central government. The national budget of the United States government is something on the order of $800 billion. This is more money than most people can even imagine. By way of contrast, the federal government (which, as noted, spent about $11 million in 1800), spent $500 million in 1900, about $8 billion a year during the height of the New Deal's "reckless" spending spree, about $100 billion in 1962, and $200 billion in 1970. I These dollar figures, of course, do not even begin to suggest the actual role of government, its importance in the daily life of the population . For the millions on government payrolls, state, federal, and local, the government is the boss, the supplier of paychecks. Millions of people are wards of the state, in one way or another-prisoners, members of the military, school children, residents of VA hospitals. Millions receive pensions or other money from the state: old age or 45 46 TOTAL JUSTICE disability payments; veterans' benefits; aid to families of dependent children; food stamps; payments for not growing peanuts or corn; student loans, disaster loans, small business loans-the list is almost endless. The power of the state is immense in other ways. The state runs the criminal justice system. It patrols the highways. Police departments, the army and air force, the National Guard, the FBI-all are part of government; and the government owns tanks, aircraft carriers, and fighter-bombers, not to mention the hydrogen bomb. The range of government activity also seems limitless. One can get a rough idea by leafing through the index of a modern state statute book. Taking Virginia as an example, in its thick volumes we find laws on almost every conceivable subject, from A to Z. The "A's" include such obvious topics as abortion, aviation, arson, and attorneys-at-law; plus such headings as apples (elaborate regulation of commercial apple growing), the applebutter championship contest, assumed names, and artesian wells. One double page, under the letter S, includes entries for skiing, slaughterhouses, slot machines, slugs, slum clearance, Smithfield hams, snakes, and snowmobiles. And so it goes, all the way to zoning, the last entry in the statute book. Statutory words on a printed page do not necessarily mean dense daily regulation; but at the very least, the Virginia statute book implies a vigorous, richly textured public sector. Where does all this activity come from? And what is it for? At some level, all this law making, all the increase in the scope and power of the state, must come about in response to demands from society itself, or from some organized portion or group within society. "The state" is not a self-contained system; it has to be fed and watered, like a plant. To some degree it is under the control of its public, whether by this we mean the general public or some smaller elite. The state, in the last analysis, developed its characteristic modern form in response to a vast increase in demands and expectations. Take one example already mentioned: product safety. How did the state get into the business of running programs to regulate food and other products~rulesabout drugs, meat and vegetables, automobiles, toys? Why is there a federal agency with power and duty to decide whether a company can use some additive to make maraschino cherries redder, or cucumbers greener? Why is Washington concerned THE SECURITY STATE 47 with labels on mattresses or products made of wool? Each entry in the statute book has a history, and the history is a history of demands. The story of meat inspection law, and the first federal food and drug law (1906) is an often-told tale. In the background was Upton Sinclair 's novel, The Jungle. This masterpiece of muckraking described the miserable lives of workers in Chicago's meat-packing plants; what is more to the point, it accused the packing houses of putting out putrid, rat-infested, moldy meat. A storm of protest overwhelmed the Congress...