In the present times, there is a greater emphasis on the positive role of the State, because it is now clearly realised that “the influence of the State permeates all our relations, even those of the personal kind.” Accordingly, the State should do the following things:
Free personality.
First of all, the State should create conditions for the growth of free individuality and personality of its citizens. “The business of the State,” said T H. Green, “is not merely the business of a policeman, of arresting wrongdoers, or of ruthlessly enforcing contracts but of providing for men an equal change, as far as possible, of realising what is best in their intellectual and moral natures.”
External conditions of peace, order and protection.
Human personality in general cannot develop freely without “those external conditions of social living which are of universal concern in view of the acknowledged objects of human desire.” These conditions are, as Maclver mentioned, peace and order, protection, conservation and development. The State must maintain peace and order, not because it is a sort of universal policeman but because in peaceful and orderly atmosphere alone each individual can rise to the full stature of his personality. In other words, man develops his individuality and personality only when the State regulates the dealings of the citizens with one another, prevents confusion and chaos, maintains the rights of its citizens and enforces their duties.
The State should maintain order not for the sake of order but for the higher ends of protection, conservation and development. Modern State cannot become a mere police-State, as the laissezfaire wanted it to be. It is a positive State, for it actively creates conditions of human development and welfare. “The same reason,” writes Gamer, “which justified the State at first in protecting person and property against violation, justified it yesterday in abolishing slavery, justifies it today in abolishing ignorance, and will justify it tomorrow in abolishing other degrading conditions of life.”
Social Welfare.
The State protects and promotes the welfare and well-being of the individual by preserving law and order. But this is not enough. Mere protection of the rights of an individual and enforcement of his duties do not exhaust the list of its functions. Every State now espouses the cause of the economically and socially weak, “so that the mere requisites of health and decency shall not be denied by accident or misfortune or incapacity to any member of the community” (Maclver). Furthermore, modern State now assumes the duty of promoting general welfare.
It is now clearly realise^ that the State is a collective body and not a joint-stock company of the privileged fee. It should promote social conditions for the welfare of all. It is now universally recognised that society cannot be happy, prosperous and progressive if some people suffer from the pangs of hunger, or are illiterate and ignorant, or are unhealthy and miserable. Modem society is becoming collectivistic. Hence modern State can no longer be individualistic, as it was in the nineteenth century. It is now recognised that State should interfere and regulate social life, if such interference and regulation will promote general welfare. Hence the sphere of State activity should extend to new fields of social and Rational life, for there are many things of general wellbeing which are not provided by the efforts of individuals and associations either because their private efforts are insufficient or they are incapable of doing so.
Conservation and development.
The State is the custodian of the future of the nation. It must conserve what the nation has now and develop its resources for the future generations. “The State with its command of resources and its universal reach can build for the future in ways that no partial organisation can exert.” It can undertake many constructive plans and projects whose benefits will be shared by the future generations. Individual or private enterprise does not undertake them, because it is selfish, its resources are limited, its method haphazard and it aims at immediate gain.
The State suffers from no such limitations or short comings. While private enterprise cannot risk its limited resources in long-term projects, the State can undertake ambitious plans and schemes of conservation and development, as it possesses abundant resources. It can develop national economy by planning and building industry, and agriculture, by undertaking industrial and scientific research and discovery, and encouraging such higher activities of life as science, literature and art. In short, it can promote culture and civilisation.