ROSS DOUTHAT: Government And Its Rivals. “When government expands, it’s often at the expense of alternative expressions of community, alternative groups that seek to serve the common good. Unlike most communal organizations, the government has coercive power — the power to regulate, to mandate and to tax. These advantages make it all too easy for the state to gradually crowd out its rivals. The more things we ‘do together’ as a government, in many cases, the fewer things we’re allowed to do together in other spheres.”