Political Culture and Constitutional Democratic Political Institutions (Continued).

As regards the question of what government should attempt to accomplish, basic political values and norms supporting constitutional democracy dictate that the government should be neither expected nor allowed to try to do everything. Since many human services can be provided more effectively by individuals, families, religious organizations and other private groups and institutions, governmental activity should be confined to doing those things that need to be done and can be done more effectively by government, without loss of important rights and liberties. The private sphere of human activity and endeavor should be much larger than the public sphere, and most aspects of individual, family, and religious life should be in the private sphere. While some disagreement over which matters properly belong in the public sphere and which properly belong in the private sphere--disagreement over whether particular services can be performed more effectively by government than by the private sector--is to be expected in a large, populous, and pluralistic constitutional democratic society such as the U.S.A., normally the differences of opinion are marginal, occurring within a relatively narrow range, and no substantial segment of public opinion supports measures clearly and widely perceived to be destructive of human liberty and constitutional democratic political institutions.

Basic Political Beliefs Supporting Constitutional Democracy. A society's successful operation of a constitutional democratic system requires that the political culture of that society contain supporting political beliefs as well as supporting political values and norms. Within the society, there must be widespread and strongly held perceptions that--

      The society has a common constitution which effectively
      limits governmental power;

      Most of the time, government officeholders and institu-
      tions conduct government in accordance with the Constitu-
      tion and remain within the limits which it imposes on
      their political authority;

      The Constitution and supporting statutes prescribe the
      means by which major officeholders in the government are
      to be chosen;

      Those who hold major government office and exercise polit-
      ical authority are the legitimate rulers of the society,
      since the constitutionally and legally prescribed proce-
      dures for selecting major officeholders in the government
      are widely accepted by the population at large and, most
      of the time, are followed by the active participants in
      the political process;

      Most of the time, the rule of law prevails, for govern-
      ment officeholders, like ordinary citizens, are subject
      to and bound by the law, and hence the government, in
      making and enforcing decisions, is required to proceed
      according to law;

      On those occasions when government officeholders abuse or
      exceed their lawful authority or otherwise violate the 
      law, there are available constitutional and legal proce-
      dures for calling them to account and, if deemed necessary
      or expedient, removing them from office before the end of
      their terms;

      Only with the consent of the voters' elected representa-
      tives in the legislature, are statutory laws enacted,
      taxes levied, and public budgets adopted;

      To ensure the government's observance and protection of
      his legally guaranteed rights and liberties, the individ-
      ual citizen has recourse to the courts, which are indepen-
      dent of both the legislature and the executive;

      Most of the time, the government, in taking action against
      the individual, follows due process of law;

      Basic human nature, the native intelligence of most per-
      sons, opportunities for obtaining a general education,
      and the news media's coverage of political events are
      such that the average adult citizen has the capacity to
      participate in the political process in a reasonable and
      constructive manner;

      Peaceful political action can be employed to bring about
      a change in governing elites, since the Constitution and
      supporting statutes prescribe periodic elections as the
      legitimate means of choosing major government office-
      holders, normally these elections are fairly and honestly
      conducted, and the overwhelming majority of adult citizens
      have the legal right and opportunity to vote in the elec-
      tions;

      While professional politicians, once they are elected to
      and installed in government office, may be inclined to
      neglect particular public problems, they can be compelled
      to give attention to these problems by groups of con-
      cerned citizens who acquire and wield significant polit-
      ical influence through active participation in the polit-
      ical process between as well as during elections--citizens
      who obtain and exert this influence by regularly partici-
      pating in election campaigns and voting in elections and
      by vigorously and persistently exercising their constitu-
      tionally guaranteed political rights, i.e., the right to
      freedom of speech and the press, the right to peaceably
      assemble and form political organizations (including in-
      terest groups and political action committees), and the
      right to petition the government for a redress of griev-
      ances;

      It is the civic duty and moral obligation of citizens to
      comply with the authoritative decisions of government be-
      cause the persons who hold government office and make
      these decisions obtained their offices by legitimate
      means and the decisions themselves were arrived at by
      constitutionally and legally prescribed procedures and
      are therefore legitimate;

      The ultimate source or basis of the legitimate authority
      of those who govern society is the consent of the gov-
      erned, as expressed through the provisions of the Consti-
      tution and through the results of periodic elections;

      The existence within society of a very large private
      sphere of human activity and endeavor is based not only
      on the proposition that it makes possible effective pro-
      tection and preservation of the rights and liberties of
      citizens but also on the fact that there are practical
      limits to the ability of government to solve human prob-
      lems.

Political Beliefs, Individualism, and Constitutional Democracy. The vitality and endurance of a constitutional democratic regime are enhanced if the society's political culture includes a widespread and strongly held belief in the basic integrity of the individual--i.e., recognition of the fundamental dignity and importance of the individual person. According to this perception, all persons are entitled to consideration simply because they are human beings. The individual person, as a human being, possesses dignity and moral worth that the entire political community and all of its members are obliged to respect, unless the individual has clearly demonstrated, by commission of heinous crimes and egregious acts of brutality and inhumanity against other persons, that he lacks the essential qualities of a civilized human being and law-abiding member of the community. Within the political community, the individual person is the central measure of value--not the only measure of value, but the central measure of value. The political community, the sovereign state, (governmental system of an independent political community), the political party, the labor union, the trade or professional association, the interest group, or any other human organization is measured primarily in terms of its usefulness to the individual members of the organization. The political community, or political society, exists for the individual, not the individual for the community, or society. The political society and its governmental system exist for the safety and convenience of the individual members of the society. The governmental system exists primarily to protect and safeguard the basic rights and liberties of individual citizens--especially the rights to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property--and secondarily to perform whatever other functions and duties that the citizenry may decide, for the good or convenience of all, to constitutionally vest in the various organs of government.

This perception of the importance of the individual in politically organized society is the core idea of that body of political and social theory known as "individualism," or "political individualism." Adherents of individualism hold that the primary task of a political society and its government is to enable every individual member of the society to achieve his highest potential development, i.e., reach the highest level of personal success commensurate with his innate abilities and talents and with his willingness to make the effort required to attain that level of success. Individualism places the highest value on the liberty, rights, and independent action of the individual member of the political community. The central emphasis of individualism is on the worth, freedom, and welfare of the individual person, rather than on the worth, freedom, and welfare of some collective entity, such as the organization, the party, the movement, the tribe, the ethnic group, the nation, or the society. Individualism emphasizes mainly the pursuit of individual interests, rather than the pursuit of common or collective interests.