The Common Good

by Robert B. Reich

They didn’t try to create the most efficient system of governance, or one that would generate the most wealth. They wanted a system that would produce the most virtuous people. “Is there no virtue among us?” asked James Madison, rhetorically. “If there be not, no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” In Federalist No. 71, Madison wrote that “it is a just observation that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD” (emphasis in the original), and in Federalist No. 45 he claimed that “the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”