How necessary is "government"?

I am "listening" to a discussion of whether government is good or bad, necessary or unnecessary. Both of the people discussing this are in the US. I wanted to bring pieces of the discussion here because what government is needed for has come up. I think it is an interesting subject for NicaLiving because the government-supplied services are quite different here. I have labeled the people 1: and 2: so you know there two players. I encourage both of them to join in here.

1: The fact that our present administration is so incredibily counterproductive, and yet the people in the country still survive, largely, is pretty damning proof that that government in general is not needed.

2: I opine that the government provides about 90% useful services and we only notice the 10% that is broken. To be clear (somewhat), ``useful services'' includes a lot of stuff that is not done very well, but it gets done. We have fire services. Takes a bunch o' money, but without regulations houses would catch on fire way more often, houses would burn faster (= more deadly) when they did catch fire, and neighboring houses would also burn down more often.

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So for some value of ``needed'', yah, it isn't needed. But without some system in place (whether you call it government or other) a lot of stuff would be a lot more dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming.

There's 10% that is a mess, but I take it that people largely survive because most of their day-to-day demands are met by infrastructure you don't hear about.

So, what are those services that are needed? The "standard" answer usually fits along Liberal or Conservative lines. That is, the Liberal answer is that the government should do everything for everyone and the Conservative answer is that the government should get out of the way and stop spending "our money". There are clearly positions along this line plus some strange exceptions such as the current Bush administration that is supposed to be conservative but also wants to spend more money than every before. Let me toss out some spending topics and see how the US and Nicaragua address them.

Emergency Services Police and Fire are supplied by the government in both countries. One difference is that in the US, while the fire departments have ambulances and it is common for them to be on the scene, private ambulances are used to transport people to the hospitals. In Nicaragua (and many other countries), the Red Cross supplies the ambulance service.

Medical Services In the US, medical services are mostly private. In Nicaragua there are government hospitals and clinics that operate in parallel with private institutions. This means everyone has access to at least minimal medical services in Nicaragua.

Roads Government supplied in both countries.

Utilities Telephone services are private in the US and are being privatized in Nicaragua. Electricity is private in Nicaragua but the US is a patchwork of government and private sources. Water is being privatized (maybe--a lot of public pressure against this) in Nicaragua but is mostly government in the US. (Note that privatization of services in Nicaragua is being forced by IMF agreements, not by public opinion.)

Media Press, radio and TV are private in both countries. Nicaragua, however, seems to have more respect for radio being a public resource than the US. In the US, large corporate control of the media with FCC give-aways to support this has reduced it to a "push" service rather than a community service. In Nicaragua, for example, you will hear "pager announcements" telling Enacal about a water leak and lots of announcements to inform families about family members being in the hospital and even deaths. Because this service does not exist in the US, more infrastructure is built (paid for by tax dollars) to provide these services.

Education Government supplied and under-funded. (This could be a big discussion topic.)

Product regulation This includes health standards for food processing, product labeling and all the things that require businesses to "follow some rules". The US has gone crazy in this area with, for example, labels on lawn mowers telling you that they should not be used to trim your hedge. In Nicaragua there is very little of this sort of regulation. There is a very different attitude about product liability in Nicaragua. I call it "personal responsibility". That is, if you pour hot coffee on your lap, you don't sue McDonald's. You realize you screwed up. This becomes a lot easier when there are more local businesses and word of mouth is the best way to find good suppliers.

Building Codes They exist in both countries and seem to have good and strange things in them. They are also more likely to be enforced in cities than rural areas. Brick and concrete are the common building materials in Nicaragua so concerns about burning down the neighbor's house with faulty wiring are much less important.

There is my start at differences. There are certainly a lot more. I also suggest (as I have pointed out in other articles) the kind of government (what government services make sense) is very different for rural vs. city folks.