The Duties of Government Regarding Property, According to Cicero

The Economist reports that 76 countries have or will hold elections in 2024—the largest election year in history.  Just what are the duties of a government?  After serving in public office and after witnessing the demise of the Roman Republic, Cicero wrote a work on ethics titled ‘On Duties’ (De Officiis).  In it, he included a section in Book II on the duties of the state, particularly those duties that relate to property.  Some thoughts from Cicero (I have divided them into 8 points) may be worthy of consideration today.

1. A state will assure public services sometimes to the entire citizenry and sometimes to some individuals.  In the latter case, the government must take care that what is done also benefits the state (II.72).  In this statement, Cicero addresses the concern that a government not favour one sector of society or govern by privileging certain social groups without benefitting all in some way.

2. Administrators must be careful to respect individuals’ private property rights.  Cicero makes the protection of private property a fundamental duty.  He says, ‘For ... it is the peculiar function of the state and the city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own particular property’ (II.78).   His argument for this is that

the chief purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments was that individual property rights might be secured. For although it was by Nature's guidance that men were drawn together into communities, it was in the hope of safeguarding their possessions that they sought the protection of cities’ (II.73). 

3. Cicero further says that the state must not pursue a policy of equal distribution of property (II.73).  

4. In addition to the laws and courts protecting private property, the state should also take care that the poor are not oppressed in their helplessness on the one hand and that the rich are not deprived of justice in recovering their property out of envy for their wealth (II.85).

5. The state will sometimes be in such great need that it will have no choice but to levy a property tax, but it must do everything possible to plan property so that it will not have to resort to this measure (II.74).

6. Government officials must take measures to assure ‘an abundance of the necessities of life’ (II.74).

7. Public administration and service must avoid even the suspicion of being self-seeking (II.75).  Cicero gives a number examples:

a. Bribery and extortion, pillaging and plundering allies (II.75),

b. a general’s self-gain when pillaging an enemy after defeat (II.76),

c. a governing official’s selfish profit from his exercise of office rather than exercising self-restraint and self-denial (II.77),

d. passing laws to drive people from their property, cancelling debts to creditors’ loss to the borrowers, disrespecting property by doing away with equity (II.78),

e. redistribution of property long in a family’s possession without hearing each case (II.80), rather than allowing some to retain the property but requiring them to compensate those disenfranchised (II.81) and requiring others to relinquish their possession to restore social harmony (II.82),

f. dividing citizens rather than looking out for all with impartial justice, such as when allowing some to live rent free in others’ property (II.83),

g. abolishing debts: ‘And what is the meaning of an abolition of debts, except that you buy a farm with my money; that you have the farm, and I have not my money?’ (II.84). 

8. The government must strive by all means, in peace and in war, to advance the state’s power, territory and revenues (II.85).  While this wording is surely uncomfortably unethical (it seems to justify unjust wars--which Cicero opposed elsewhere), even if it is realistic in history (think of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in our day), it does bring up the concern of a state to seek interests that benefit its citizens.  Officials are to put the prosperity of citizens above the prosperity of other states.  Imagine a country's governing officials using power to benefit non-citizens over citizens (not difficult to imagine, is it?!).

Having given several examples in history of statesmen who have accomplished such duties, Cicero concludes:

Such service calls for great men; it was commonly rendered in the days of our ancestors; if men will perform duties such as these, they will win popularity and glory for themselves and at the same time render eminent service to the state (II.85).

Cicero's point is that one's reputation in government is linked to eminent service to the state and is therefore a motivation for serving well.  Over against using an office for self-gain and not serving the citizenry or state, wanting to achieve popularity and glory through service is a good thing.

When Paul writes about government as an institution appointed by God (Romans 13.2), he is not saying that whatever a ruler does is justified because he is God's appointed authority.  He rather has in mind that, as an institution, government provides an important an needed service.  As Cicero says, government officials have certain duties to perform.  What Paul says implies that, if they fail to do so, they are failing to perform what God has established them to do: to exercise the sword--that is, justice.  (This is not a statement about capital punishment!)  Paul says that the official in authority in government' is God's servant for your good' (13.3)--just as one's own conscience is an inward authority for one's own good (cf. 13.5).