* * * * * At the beginning of this chapter three closely related movements in American politics were mentioned. The third must now be considered—the introduction of social programs into party platforms. We have had three policies in legislation: (1) the let-alone policy,[78] (2) the regulation policy, and now (3) the constructive policy is just appearing. In order to get away from the consequences of _laissez-faire_, we adopted, at the end of the nineteenth century, an almost equally pernicious one, the regulation theory. The error at the bottom of the “regulation” idea of government is that people may be allowed to do as they please (_laissez-faire_) until they have built up special rules and privileges for themselves, and then they shall be “regulated.” The regulation theory of government is that we are to give every opportunity for efficiency to come to the top in order that we shall get the benefit of that efficiency, but at the same time our governmental machinery is to be such that efficiency is to be shorn of its power before it can do any harm—a sort of automatic blow-off. Gauge your boiler (society) at what it will stand without bursting, then when our ablest people get to that point the blow-off will make society safe. But the most salient thing about present American politics is that we are giving up both our let-alone and our regulation policies in favor of a constructive policy. There has been a steady and comprehensible growth of democracy from this point of view, that is, of the idea of the function of government being not merely to protect, to adjust, to restrain, and all the negative rest of it, but that the function of government should be to build, to construct the life of its people. We think now that a constructive social policy is more democratic than the protection of men in their individual rights and property. In 1800 the opposite idea prevailed, and Jefferson, not Hamilton, was considered the Democrat. We must reinterpret or restate the fundamental principles of democracy.