What the Heck Has Happened to “John Q. Citizen”?

And Watch Out for Who Will Be Glad to Take His Place

Nov 28, 2023

We The people text — Photo by Anthony Garand on Unsplash

“We the People”- A Revolutionary Concept

“We the people”.[1] It is a phrase many Americans have heard and know of, although it would be interesting to see how many would know if it came from the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. In any event, what does “We the People” mean to most Americans?

Many Americans, quoting the closing portion of Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, would say it means “government of the people, by the people, for the people…”.[2] This certainly is a good answer to the question, but one can go back further in time to our founders to find the roots of what Lincoln was saying in his Gettysburg Address.

The Roots of “We the People”

The framers of our Constitution chose these words very deliberately, having been strongly influenced by John Locke as well as other writers of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason from the 1600s and 1700s. Locke’s and others’ writings from the Enlightenment era so highly influenced American British colonists’ thinking about their existing government that they ultimately revolted against it, doing so at great risk to their own lives, their family’s lives, and their property.

Locke’s influential writings argued that government was an agreement, a social compact, put together to allow people to live together in peace and it rested solely on the consent of the governed.[3] Thus, our country’s founders made clear when writing the Constitution who it was that was deciding to create this country. It was not a religious leader, a noble, not an oligarch, or a prince or a king who chose to govern, but rather, the people of the country. And by this concept, “We the People”, and only “We the People”, consent to be governed- a truly revolutionary idea at that time!

What Most of Us Want from Our Government

For many Americans today, however, the phrase “We the People” too often means mostly, if not entirely, what government can do for us. This is certainly one dimension of the phrase “We the People”. Government is created to serve its citizens, not vice versa. As John Locke taught, government requires the consent of the governed. And, because government belongs to those who have given consent to be governed, it does not create its own wealth. The funds government raises to finance government services belongs to “We the People”. Government only spends its citizens’ money, and, for that reason, government must have a strong sense of stewardship.

Sadly though, today the only dimension by which many Americans view and evaluate their government is reflected in these questions: What is it doing for me? How is it serving me? Providing for me? Protecting me? But, in a democracy there is more required of us than simply expecting to be served by our government.

The Important Role of “John Q. Citizen” in a Democracy

When we focus on what government should rightfully do for us as citizens, that perspective can cause us to fail to see a different, but key, component of our role as “We the People”. That is- what does our government need and must have from its citizens for it to function properly? What do Americans need to be doing for their government to provide it with an informed “consent of the governed”? This is a key component of democracy and it can only be provided by us. Thus, “John Q. Citizen” steps into the spotlight of democracy to serve in the important role of “We the People”.[4]

Specifically, in our role as “John Q. Citizen” we must ask ourselves, what does our representative democracy require and need of its citizens if is to succeed in the 21^st century and beyond? What does our government need from and require of each of us for our democracy to govern us well.

There is likely more than one answer to this question. One of the basic things America needs most from its citizens today is for them to be knowledgeable about their government. What should this knowledge include? In a democracy, here is what the average American, “John Q. Citizen”, should reasonably be expected to, at a minimum, know about their government:

· how their government is structured.

· how it was “birthed”.

· how it has historically evolved (“the good, the bad and the ugly”).

· how it is supposed to work.

· the concepts, theories, and norms underpinning it.

· who their Congressional representatives are.

· how it is funded.

· how they can constructively “plug in to it” to influence its governance for the betterment of all (i.e., the common good).

· perhaps most importantly, how they can best participate and serve their government.

Civic Participation Developed John Q. Citizen’s Role in Democracy

It is one thing to identify what it is that John Q. Citizen should know about their government. But, since democracy is an idea (albeit a powerful one), how did the practical role of John Q. Citizen develop in this country with a population that at its founding had never been governed democratically before? Yoni Appelbaum has identified how this happened in an eye-opening piece in The Atlantic . It was done through one of them most significant early shaping forces of Americans’ democratic civic beliefs and knowledge. According to Appelbaum:

“Democracy is a most unnatural act. People have no innate democratic instinct; we are not born yearning to set aside our own desires in favor of the majority’s. Democracy is, instead, an acquired habit. Like most habits, democratic behavior develops slowly over time, through constant repetition. For two centuries, the United States was distinguished by its mania for democracy…” (emphasis mine)[5]

Americans used democracy in every aspect of everyday life. Americans used the framework of democracy to operate their civic clubs, their churches, social organizations, and even businesses. As Applebaum describes it:

“To almost every challenge in their lives, Americans applied a common solution. They voluntarily bound themselves together, adopting written rules, electing officers, and making decisions by majority vote..”[6] (emphasis mine)

American democracy grew in large part by Americans using democracy in their daily lives. However, something has changed. We do not get as excited about democracy or its use in our daily lives as we once did. More than that, we do not hear much anymore, if anything, about John Q. Citizen and the importance of his roles and responsibilities in a democracy. Why is that?

The Transformation of John Q. Citizen

Public employees have a job, an essential job to provide services to the public. That is the only reason public employees have a job. They have a job because they are needed to serve the public. From that standpoint, the impact of public employees being taught to consider the citizen as a “customer” is not, in and of itself, a negative thing.

However, sometimes initiatives with good goals and intentions have unintended consequences. Not all the emphasis on treating citizens as “customers” has been positive. One of the single worst outcomes of changing “John Q. Citizen’s” role to that of “John Q. Customer has been reinforcing (perhaps implicitly) the idea for citizens is that their sole role is for them to sit “in their easy chairs” and treat their city government as a big vending machine (figuratively speaking). Simply pull on the handle, and voila, out of the “vending machine” of government comes great (hopefully) service. Not much else is required of the citizen as a customer. Just pay your taxes and fees; everything else will be done for you. You do not have to do anything more than that.

You do not have to think about your government or what it is doing. You do not have to vote. You do not have to provide it any input. You do not have to think about what the vision is for the future of the government. Best of all, you do not have to know anything about your government, except how to complain or demand something from it. This view of citizenship extends to many Americans’ view of their city, county, public school, and state government as well, not just their federal government.

This idea of the citizen as customer began to appear in the early 1990’s. According to Martin Tolcin of the New York Times,

“There was a time in the history of our country when government bureaucracy was a welcome reform. Bosses like Washington Plunkitt and William Marcy Tweed ran American’s cities robbing the public as they cemented political control…To thwart these excesses and wrest government from the club houses, “reformers” introduced the merit system, devising criteria for hiring and promoting government workers and for awarding government contract and grants. The reformers created Civil Service systems and strict procedures for the expenditure of public funds.”[7] (emphasis mine)

However, this government bureaucracy and its attendant reforms created some negative results. The largest negative impact of these reforms was government service became, in general, or at was least perceived to be- too slow, overly process driven, and not results oriented. The answer to this malaise offered up by authors and consultants was for government employees to begin to treat the citizen as a “customer”.

A customer who, in concept, if he or she was not pleased with the quality of the service they received, could “take their business elsewhere”.[8] Although most government services are by necessity monopolistic in nature, this idea of thinking about providing government service this way was, at the time, considered by some to be forward thinking.

Please do not misunderstand. Government should be citizen focused and responsive to its citizens, and it should be expected to provide high quality service, at least of a quality commensurate to the financial resources its citizens are willing to pay to provide it. While this customer focus is useful in helping government employees to focus on service quality from the service user’s (the citizen) viewpoint, it has the negative effect of turning attention away from, as well as minimizing, diminishing, and even eliminating awareness of the important civic duties of citizenship that a democracy must have.

But that is not all that treating John Q. Citizen as a “customer” accomplished. His role began to gradually change. He did not reappear as John Q. Citizen. He has gradually changed identities twice before our very eyes.

From Citizen to Customer to Consumer

The diminution of John Q. Citizen’s important civic role did not stop with treating him as a customer to the exclusion of his citizenship responsibilities. No siree bob! Something else very serious has been going on beneath the surface for a long time with this effort by the government to provide “great customer service” to their “customers”. It is far more than the government treating citizens as customers. It is their identity. A new identity has formed that is even more deleterious to democratic citizenship than being a customer.

According to Michael Tomasky in his book If We Can Keep It, Americans have moved far beyond having as their primary personal identity being that of citizen. Once one begins to hear that they are a customer more than a citizen, it is a short journey to reinforcing a transformation that Tomasky says has being going on for some time now. To Tomasky, we now see ourselves more as consumers than any other role. A consumer of everything, not just government services.[9]

In contrast to identifying primarily as a consumer, having one’s primary identity being that of a citizen carries with it thinking of other persons’ interest sometimes, or in the common interest. Tomasky calls this “enlightened self-interest”, which means we should understand that when we perform acts of seeming selflessness in our citizen role and identity, it is also in our own self-interest to do so.[10] An example Tomasky provides of enlightened self-interest is supporting one’s public schools, even when one has no children attending those schools. Citizenship requires us to think of the common good (a key concept in democracy we will cover in a future Democraticus).[11]

However, the significance of us having as our primary identity being a consumer does not bode well for civic literacy and democracy because, according to Tomasky:

“In our other identity, our consumer identity, we don’t think about the common interest or enlightened self-interest. We mainly think about wants. The bigger TV, the newest phone, the latest version of that space-age device on the table that we can ask to play “Back in Black” or name the capital of Ontario…Over these past thirty years, we have been trained by the market to want, want, want…”[12] (emphasis mine)

In our democracy there has always been, in Tomasky’s view, a dynamic tension between our identities as citizens and that as consumers. It was not until the 1970s to the present that our consumer identity has grown exponentially, totally eclipsing our citizen identity, and now dominates as our primary identity. Tomasky describes this transformation to seeing ourselves almost entirely as consumers rather than citizens as:

“…something that has happened in an astonishingly short period of time, in historical terms. Think about…the 1930s, how few people owned radios, telephones, stoves, and other items. That was eighty years ago (and eighty years before that, in the 1850s, most people owned no consumer items at all). Today most people have all these things...”[13]

Tomasky asks the question, “We have given ourselves to our private pursuits. How did this happen?”[14] For Tomasky, the causes have been:

“…a period of inflation like the modern United States had never seen; a massive expansion of credit to the middle class (i.e., credit card availability, author’s note), but extended at rates of 15 and 20 percent; banking deregulation that increased Americans savings but also led to the S&L crisis; explosions in compensation for the top 1 percent, in every walk of life, and finally, and age of unprecedented consumption…”[15]

Our adopted primary self-identity as consumers appears complete and is a formidable obstacle to improving our civic literacy as well as our carrying out our citizenship responsibilities. As Tomasky puts it, “…Our consumer selves have lapped our citizen selves a few times over…”[16] But, all is not lost. A refocus on our roles as citizens is achievable if we begin to ask, what exactly are we as supposed to be doing as United States’ citizens?

So, Who Exactly, is Serving Who?

This customer service identity has major limitations, as does a primary personal identity of being a consumer. It is a problem of being very one-dimensional. By one-dimensional it is meant that with the emphasis and constant bombardment of messages to citizens that they are primarily customers and consumers, it omits other vital dimensions and aspects of citizens’ democratic roles. These include being civically informed about, aware of, and involved in their government.

To be certain, even though it can be argued we do not see ourselves today primarily as citizens, it is indeed someone’s “job” to teach citizens their civic duties. Whose job is it to do that? The answer to the first questions is that more than one part of our society should be teaching and reinforcing to citizens what their civic responsibilities are.

Still, who is actually doing it? While someone or some group may be doing it, if it is happening, it is not happening effectively in a comprehensive, holistic, and coordinated manner. At most, today we are focused on citizens as customers and consumers, not citizens as civic participants. Customer service’s focus is not going to educate citizens about their civic responsibilities. It is the wrong tool to address civic literacy and civic involvement so desperately needed to support democracy. It is like taking a golf club to a bowling alley.

John Q. Consumer’s Identity Makes the Case for Improved Civic Education

Our founding fathers understood very well this need for citizens to be civically literate and to see themselves more than simply consumers of government services. Government is more than a figurative vending machine. A representative democracy requires human interaction between the governed and those governing. On a daily basis, this requires citizens to be involved constructively in their government’s daily affairs by providing input to shape its policy directions. It requires citizens to share ideas and concepts about their government which they hold in common. When we reinforce to citizens that their primary role is instead, to be customers or consumers, i.e., only to be recipients of or users of government services, the wrong message is sent.

Instead, the message received is that it is acceptable, and indeed expected, for Americans to be passive and uninformed about their government. That message conveys both explicitly and implicitly that a citizen’s main role is to receive government services, and not much more than that. Participating in one’s government, whether voting or in some other role of providing input to one’s elected officials, becomes a low priority, if it is even thought of at all. If one considers themselves as John Q. Customer or Consumer, and not John Q. Citizen, it now becomes normative for them to think of their citizenship principally from the perspective of what government can give them or what they can take from it. With that misguided perspective alone, we have been taught that all will be well with our democracy.

Democracy Pays a Price with John Q. Citizen’s Exit from the Public Square

However, all is not well, nor will it be, because a limited, one-sided view of citizenship as that of a customer or a consumer in a representative democracy creates a huge void that can be filled by no one other than its citizens. This void in the citizens’ role of carrying out their civic responsibilities is sometimes called “civic duty”. This void cannot be filled by just any kind of citizen. This void can only be filled by citizens that are adequately equipped knowledge wise to exercise those roles, rights, and responsibilities.

Ask yourself this- do we legally allow adults to drive without taking a driver’s test? How about pilots? Would you feel comfortable boarding a plane where the pilot learned to fly (or at least thinks they learned) by reading a few manuals and logging a few hours of flight time? Of course not. What would occur? Likely, it would be mayhem and, at a minimum, dangerous.

Yet, most Americans do not seem to be inclined to give a moment’s thought to the impact of their being equipped with little, if any, working knowledge about their government or their role in making it effective. The alarming fact is that many, if not most Americans, never become civically engaged, or feel a sense of obligation to do so in a constructive manner. It rarely crosses their minds. When they do want to become civically engaged, it is because there is an issue that directly affects them (usually hitting their pocketbook).

Ironically, most Americans do not know, even in situations where they can see that they are being directly impacted by some action, law, or policy of their government, how they should contact and engage their government (be it their city, county, state, or the national government). If you doubt this, ask them who is on their city council, school board, county commission or who their congressman or senators are at the state or federal levels.

The Bottom Line- A Successful Democracy Requires John Q. Citizen

President John F. Kennedy recognized the vital importance of the centrality of American citizens’ role of positive involvement and service to their government, when he said in his famous January 1961 inauguration address:

“And so, my fellow Americans; ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country.”[17]

John Q. Citizen did not disappear. He changed identities and roles. He is on a “hiatus” from his civic duties and responsibilities in a democracy. He morphed from John Q. Citizen to John Q. Customer to John Q. Consumer. And like it or not, we are the ones who have let this happen. We must end John Q. Citizen’s hiatus and absence from his civic duty as part of We the People. We must have John Q. Citizen back as a civically informed and constructively engaged citizen if American democracy is to survive.

Failure to do so invites a very eager elite cadre of Americans funded by the billionaire classes’ dark money that are not at all interested in democracy. And they are more than willing to make all the decisions for We the People that We the Peopled formerly made. On this the sixtieth year since President Kennedy was assassinated, it would do our nation well for us to collectively heed JFK’s call to serve our country and return to our democratic roots as citizens, not as consumers and not as customers. We must all heed President Kennedy’s call and answer it. Time is of the essence.

Stay tuned…we will continue exploring topics like this one that are not given near enough time and emphasis in our civic education efforts, if they are even taught at all.

Democracy is so important. But it’s hard to keep, and it’s easy to lose. It’s up to us, and only us, to protect it. Become a democratist!

[2] From Transcript of Cornell University’s Copy, The Gettysburg Address, by President Abraham Lincoln, Delivered November 19, 1863, Cornell University Library, Copyright 2013 Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections, rmc.library.cornell.edu

[4] Also called “John or Jane Q. Taxpayer”, or sometimes “Jane Q. Citizen”, See for the evolution of this term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Q._Public

[6] “Americans Aren’t Practicing Democracy”, by Yoni Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018, pg. 3 of 10, Ibid.

[7] “The Citizen as Customer”, by Martin Tolchin, The New York Times, March 8, 1992, Section 7, pg. 7, https.//www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/books/the-citizen-as-customer.html

[8] Ibid, “The Citizen as Customer”, by Martin Tolchin, The New York Times, March 8, 1992, Section 7, pg. 7.

[9] If We Can Keep It, How the Republic Collapsed and How We Can Keep It, by Michael Tomasky, Copyright 2019, pg. 125, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

[17] John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 1961, Voices of Democracy, https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/kennedy-inaugural-address-speech-text

Democraticus- The Democratist

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