We need government, but we need the government to understand its role better. Our constitution does not explain how. So I will.
A great fundamental question. Let me first preface my answer with my viewpoint on the state of the U.S. government today. Just because we have a political system with major constitutional flaws and politicians who subsequently take those flaws for a cunning and glorious ride, makes it very tempting to want to abolish government altogether. But we shall not.
The performance of government today is mediocre at best because the government has failed to establish the gameplay of freedom every system must abide by to produce renewable value to the evolution of humanity. Hence government interferes and oversteps its role in attempting to stitch together a piecemeal implementation of freedom only when a system becomes too big to fail (but no sooner). More reason to get rid of government. But we shall not.
A bad car is not a good reason to stop driving; the right decision is to get a new one. Bad government is no reason to get rid of governance; the right course of action is for us “the people” to tell the government how it must govern. It is “the people’s” fiduciary and constitutional obligation. So, here is a start.
Any system we build, in the private sector or the public sector, designed to embody and abide by the free-market principles to secure a meritocracy, thus becoming renewable, requires roughly the same amount of governance. For the simple reason, the characteristics of the participants of the marketplace (the public) are generally the same. And any marketplace-system of freedom must be protected by paradoxical rules of freedom to defend such a system from malfeasance by bad actors, and then some. Governance is also needed to ensure short-term interest in the marketplace yields long-term value to the evolution of humanity and does not harm the prospects of the marketplace participants of the future.
That may sound like a lot of economics speak to you, so let me make it easier. Can you envision a game of soccer without a referee? Read my article on Soccer Economics, written in 2013.
