Why Good Government is not Enough

Is a controversial ideology needed, if the uncontroversial elements of good government –external defence, law and order, economic stability, necessary public services, competence, integrity, energy, and a focus on “what works”– can be assured? The paper argues that every polity needs the ideology that will correct its own distinctive structural tendency towards some morally unacceptable outcome. The tendency of a democracy is to sacrifice the interests of the poorest third of the population to those of the richer two-thirds, who will permanently outvote them. A party of the left needs to be committed both, for its own electability, to the good government conception, and to a controversial ideology aimed at counteracting the morally and prudentially damaging tendencies inherent in the polity itself.