Regardless of your geographic location, religion, heritage, party affiliation, or your firmness on historical texts; what is it that you believe government’s role to be - or should be?
If you’d like to elaborate, what is it you think your local or national government gets right and gets wrong?
I pose the question because I believe this fundamental belief is through which we observe and react to politics. There are things we want or don’t want government to do but often legislation or special interests or geographic or political threats get in the way. Our reactions to politics are often, but not wrongly, short-sighted and emotional without context or wisdom. I don’t see much dialog around this topic and I wonder if people subscribe to political parties without really considering if the party aligns with what they genuinely believe government’s responsibility is or should be.
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I feel like government should be there to improve the lives of the population, in short. We’re all paying into it with our taxes for that reason. They should be implementing social programs, regulating hazards, addressing crises, and generally be there to help everyone.
I’m on cup one of coffee this morning though, so I’m sure this could be better articulated.
And controlling corporations and the state police
Government is literally the only check we have against corporate oligarchy. It’s mind boggling that conservatives think companies will behave due to a “free market.”
I think there are two major purposes in government. First, protection for its citizens. This includes military protection from hostile foreign powers and domestic protection from interpersonal crime and systemic violence as well as providing safety nets.
The second is creation, protection, and maintenance of public infrastructure, including transportation arteries, healthcare systems, etc.
Furthermore, government should be centered around protecting all its citizens, not just the richest.
I think an ideal government should do the following:
- Provide essential services to citizens for free, such as education, public transport and healthcare.
- Implement legislation that ensures everyone is free to express themselves however they want if it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
- Implement legislation that protects individuals from hostile people and companies.
- Encourage economic growth through healthy competition between companies.
- A strong justice system that is transparent, fair and ammendable.
- Defence of the country’s borders and interests.
Of course, this is just wishful thinking on my part - I’m sure a lot of this will fall apart when you start asking how we’d implement them or how we’d fund them.
Do the things that private industry can’t (police, fire, schools, healthcare, etc.) and place regulations on business. Along with other more basic things like equality and all that.
Laissez faire does not work. I think Europe has it about right.
Your first point touches on something great that is left out of the other replies, and also left out of many people’s understanding: services that can’t always be profitable.
Think plastic waste for a good example. Even the third world countries can’t be bothered with it as plastic is so cheap. Not that it should be left for them to begin with! That just means even tiny scaps of profit can’t be extracted from plastic waste. We’d all agree something needs to be done about it. No company will do it voluntarily, as it’s a money loser.
This is where the government should first compel the waste generators to resolve this. If they can’t resolve it voluntarily, then they should be made to comply. If even after that, the solution can’t be found, then the remaining costs go on to the citizens.
A bit simplified of course, but this is just a light discussion.
My point is I’m fine with businesses making money, but citizens should come first. People that think the government should run like a business miss that point. Businesses should run like businesses, with a profit motive, as this pays everyone. But some things can’t be handled without a loss, and those things are where a government can shine. They tax us, but for things that serve us where businesses can’t.
Military is another example. I would NOT like seeing us have a for-profit military. That is a terrifying thought. But we need protection as a nation, so it needs to be ran and paid for.
To faithfully represent, serve, and protect the governed.
You know, we’ve been through this before.
- form a more perfect Union
- establish Justice
- insure domestic Tranquility
- provide for the common defence
- promote the general Welfare
- secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
As much as I agree to this, we need to regulate businesses . Corporations are monsters and will do anything to get more and give back less. This does fall under some of what you say, but interpretation. With interpretation then lawyers are involved and it takes 20 years to change anything.
Stop people screwing each other over.
Pay for shit that individuals can’t (ie, infrastructure)
To keep the common riff raff in their place so they don’t get any silly ideas.
Sort of sarcasm Sort of not as I do think that’s mostly what they do to us.
What do you think it should be, ideally?
I know things get more complicated as they scale up, but ideally, I would like to see a structure like we see in successful small tribes of people. They share ideas and respect each other, they work together to ensure that they all succeed TOGETHER. Sometimes difficult choices need to be made, but I would want leaders to choose the health and happiness of their people over their pockets.
Be a society wide credit union and insurance provider.
I think of government as a relatively recent adaptation for our some of our species’ less socially-harmonious impulses. Government makes formal our ability to gather in groups and come to a shared understanding, across diverse and often contradictory belief systems. Humans have always been really good at this, but modern governments and their accompanying bureaucracies take it to the next level. Sure we lose some efficiency, but that’s what happens when you’ve got massive populations.
I believe government is meant to take the place of the caretakers of old who would have been responsible for the well-being of the group. If you think of government as an extension of ourselves, the part that cares for the collective for the benefit of the individual, and vice versa, then it’s one of the most critical components of our survival as a species.
Ideally, government should provide everything that an individual cannot provide for themselves. If a person isn’t a builder, then government should provide a place to live. If a person isn’t a farmer, then government should provide enough food to survive on. If a person isn’t a doctor, then the government should provide medical care. And so on. All the essentials we need to live should be provided by the government, because the government is us.
Improve the quality of life of the people. How this can be done would vary from country to country and age to age, but this should be the overarching aim.
Like the others so far have said, if government is to justify its continued existence it needs to be for the good of all the people, not just those with capital.
It still implies a level of hierarchy and control, which isn’t good and will tend to lead to centralisation and corruption because power tends towards collecting more power.
But if it could be making life on the ground better for all the people, (food, shelter, education, preventing the environmental destruction that private ownership has bought) not at the expense of people within or without it’s borders (even that one child in the secret basement), them it’d be a damn sight better.
Outside of the standard “create laws and enforce them equally”, it’s on my profile.
Afflict the comfortable. Comfort the afflicted.
You might as well ask me what I believe the role of lizard or a bird to be. The measures of its success is how long it lives and how well it did at copying its uniqueness. The state doesn’t exist for humans, it exists because we are capable of getting that particular meme-infection.
This isn’t a value judgement. I could argue all the points of why having a government is better for us vs not having one but I won’t bother because even if I am right it is a post hoc justification that would apply to modern governments not what we have typically had in history.
Now a very good strategy for a state to survive is to make its territory such a nice place it has productive humans and is able to attract more. Given that the pragmatic solution is the highly democratic welfare state.
