Politics & Power Quote by Stephen Breyer

Breyer’s sentence sounds like an offhand clarification, but it smuggles in a blunt theory of modern governance: “good government” doesn’t win by merit; it survives by financing its own defense. The repetition of “good government” is doing rhetorical labor. It’s less a definition than a badge of legitimacy, a way to sort actors into two camps: civic-minded participants versus people whose “interests” run in the opposite direction. That careful phrasing avoids calling anyone corrupt outright, yet the implication is unmistakable: there are well-resourced forces that benefit when government is weaker, less functional, or more easily captured.

The key word is “counter-balance.” Breyer isn’t imagining a pristine public square where ideas compete fairly; he’s describing an arms-race equilibrium. If one side spends to bend outcomes, the other must spend to keep the system from tipping. It’s a pragmatic, almost resigned posture from a judge often associated with institutional faith. He’s not romanticizing reform so much as acknowledging the mechanics of influence in an era of expensive elections, sophisticated lobbying, and a campaign-finance landscape transformed by cases like Citizens United.

What makes the quote work is its tightrope walk between judicial restraint and political realism. Breyer speaks in the language of civic hygiene, but he’s pointing at a structural problem: when defending “good government” requires fundraising, the very act of protecting democratic legitimacy starts to resemble the transactional politics it’s meant to resist. The subtext is uneasy: counterbalance may be necessary, but it’s also a symptom of a system that no longer balances itself.