Good Government - Inspired by Failed State

The first question is what should be the aim of government. It is easy to see government as an untouchable monolith, but we need to take a step back and decide why we have one and what it should do.

In the rawest form: government should aim to provide the system for individuals to gain skills and ‘create’ / ‘innovate’ on a level-playing field.

I do think this ignores an equally important second aim of government of helping us facilitate our common causes, allowing us to bridge the divide between individuals and collaborate on human-improvement. Government should facilitate community and shared-progress.

Nationalisation and Privatisation Arguments

What is the motivation for a centralised state and devolved governance as an alternative to the use of private enterprise which could feasibly achieve everything that a government does? Why should we choose a democratic or other form of government, beyond functions that privatised organisations are able to carry out?

A state fundamentally should serve its population - its stakeholders should be its citizens - any action it takes should be to serve the short-term and equally long-term lifestyle of this group. Short-term headwinds are much preferable to long-term decline.

In many ways companies and states are run similarly, but fundamentally the purpose of one is to enhance the lives of the people it serves, whereas the other exists to enhance the wealth of itself and it’s shareholders whether or not this is aligned with the interests of the people who buy or rely on its products.

The privatised market offers a darwinistic game where the strongest survive, based on risk and reward. A lot of the time this creates innovation, productivity and growth aligned with human interest. It is also true that such a system can miss innovative ideas due to bad luck.

When a privatised market goes against human will, what guard rails are there against it exercising its wealth to get what it wants.

In general a democratic government should create institutions which value the lives and opportunities of the masses over the few.

Many times these opportunities align with catalysing private enterprise, however in areas where profit is misaligned to general benefit the state should restrict the private companies. Areas where this may be true are education, healthcare, defense but also in environmental control, and law.

When companies reach the size of states it is very clear to see that the difference between them is who they should answer to.

For an efficient state, and efficient private sector, there needs to be agreement that the state is looking out for the workforce, and providing them the means to innovate. This means creating an open market where people can travel, move and flow between private organisations based on pay and opportunities. Where private organisations act to stifle the free flow of ideas, or competition, or act against the wishes of the general populace, this is where the state should step in and either regulate, or nationalise.

The state should aim to reduce the number of activities it has to carry out, through devolution to more local power centres where outcomes are more aligned with local goals, but also through deregulation, or privatisation when a competitive market can thrive.

You can see failure of privatisation in industries like water, transport, and where infrastructure, geography and spatial limitations will cause natural monopolies.

You can also imagine failures of privatisation in health. A healthy populace is of obvious benefit to creating an active and efficient workforce but an unhealthy population may be profitable to enterprises which specialise in healthcare. When the motivators to private enterprise are misaligned to an effective workforce and to a happy and healthy society, the government needs to take a hand to ensure that ‘productivity’ and ‘effectiveness’ are valued more then ‘profit’.