Earlier, someone mentioned government in the same sentence with problem-solving, which caught my attention because I never viewed government as a problem solving agent per se.
According to wiki (not intentionally trying to make the academics faint) government has six functions:
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1. Foreign Relations – Diplomacy and Defense
2. Develop business strength – Incubate small business, special research and development, such as space research, job training, unemployment insurance and more.
3. Protect and regulate the sustainable use of natural resources.
4. Enforce and regulate fair and responsible business practices. Included in this is monitoring monetary policy, giving consumer protection and regulating banking practices.
5. Determine and enforce civil laws of property and conduct. This includes the freedoms of the press, religion and rights of property.
6. Provide public goods and services for the well-being of the community as a whole, such as infrastructure, vaccination programs, disaster relief, fireworks shows, public parks, basic healthcare, subsidized housing, public education and public utilities.
(These are things that the government provides better than private business for the community at large through pooling money and resources. There are more positive externalities for society when government provides public goods and services.)
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None of which relate – directly – to ‘problem solving’ so much as they relate to grooming the (international and domestic) playing fields to achieve predefined objectives of peace, prosperity … and possibly freedom, thrown in as a wild card, subject to circumstances, feasibility, and prevailing winds.
The old divide of central planning vs market direction was a stark either-or approach that led to two world wars. The modern divide, more of an amalgam, is something along the lines of market forces vs corporate rent-seeking from centralized government, or what we are calling crony capitalism. Both relational models are flawed. The challenge is building a new model.
I understand that 99% of this site will say that the challenge is getting back to No Government – or Little Government – or Less Government. That purity of argument may in fact prevail, but the fact of implementing a ‘rollback’ remains daunting, especially in the modern context of middle class prosperity, the lineage of which can arguably be said to be mixed. One is left with the search for Better Government.
Which may or may not be feasible. I really don’t know. What I do know is that government does seem to … well … be in the public cross-hairs. As in, shape up or ship out.
