created by Prestigious_Load1699 on 07/03/2025 at 20:26 UTC
9 upvotes, 42 top-level comments (showing 25)
I think this is the single biggest divide between the philosophy of liberals as opposed to that of conservatives, so I'm opening the floor for some balanced perspectives on the good, bad, and ugly.
What does government do well and what does government not do well?
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1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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Comment by MightyMoosePoop at 07/03/2025 at 22:48 UTC
83 upvotes, 4 direct replies
It's really about incentives and what does the markets do better vs the public sector.
Government tends to struggle in areas where competition and market incentives drive efficiency, innovation, and consumer benefits. Markets are wonderfully effective. The private sector generally excels when businesses compete to serve customers better. However, in cases where monopolies naturally form, such as utilities and essential infrastructure, private interests often prioritize profit over the public good because there is no competition. This leads to rent-seeking and corruption. In these instances, publicly owned and operated systems, with appointed or directly elected oversight, can better serve citizens by ensuring accountability and aligning incentives with the public interest rather than profits.
tl;dr Markets are wonderfully effective and terribly effective. government's job is to embrace the former and put guard rails on the latter.
Comment by controlroomoperator at 07/03/2025 at 23:14 UTC
33 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I'll take a swing at this.
My pops passed away when I was in the 8th grade and Social Security Insurance ensured that me, my sister, and immigrant mother had a shot in this world. It was definitely more than my dad paid in and it saved our family even though he had decent life insurance. The same benefit that Paul Ryan benefitted from and wanted to remove from everyone else, btw, because he was rich enough that it was extra money to them. The government kept its promise to my father by ensuring his family always had some form of resources until we turned 18.
I had a pretty bad stuttering problem when very young and the special classes I got to attend through the public school system. I was then able to communicate with my classmates better which improved my grades which led to actual academic achievement and success. The government fulfilled its obligation to provide a safe learning environment and even let me play sports on its dime, as well. Anecdotal, but it appears that on a mass scale the government is largely delivering on this promise. We're not pumping out geniuses, but that's not the mission. We rate well, on average, with our world peers.
During my time in the Navy I was taught how to operate a nuclear reactor by a group with zero incidents since being bestowed the responsibility of operating and maintaining nuclear power plants above and below the surface of the water. Imagine an organization that has been training 18 year olds from all levels of education to safely qualify to stand watch over literally the power center of one of the largest nuclear arsenals or air wings in the world.
This government has maintained the USA as the cultural power center of the world for many decades. It has lost its luster, especially amongst peers, but few countries represent a positivity that radiates beyond the slimy sheen. This is not just because of the Hollywood and its reach, our products get everywhere because our government opens and maintains these channels.
I will freely state this government sucks in a ton of ways and as a small business owner I assure you the suck is extended to that world, as well. It's just that the alternative is businesses and the rich getting away with whatever they want and I'm not down with that. Government should fill the gaps of services not provided by the commercial markets and society's protections against the whims of the rich.
Comment by bleahdeebleah at 07/03/2025 at 22:45 UTC
55 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This reminds me of the old PJ O-Rourke quote: "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."
Government works if the people in it take their responsibility to the people seriously.
Comment by Arkmer at 07/03/2025 at 23:18 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Government is like a hammer. You can build wonderful things with it… or you can bash in skulls. It’s less about the concept of government and more about who is driving it.
Ultimately, I believe any form of government works… in theory (except those based on subjugation, slavery, racism, sexism, etc.). The problem each form of government has is that *people are involved*. A king can be an amazing ruler that is adored by the people, but he can also be cruel. It’s all about the person.
Ultimately, eventually, someone bad will come along. The benefit of a unitary executive is they can fix things fast… but they can also corrupt things fast. If you decentralize, then things change slower; it’s slower to fix things, but it’s also slower to corrupt.
I think America is seeing the whiplash of going from decades of gridlock as a decentralized government to the speed of a unitary executive. That particular individual, in my opinion, is not a good person, so it has some devastating ramifications.
Governments aren’t good or bad at anything. They’re exactly as effective as the people who run them.
Comment by AdhesivenessCivil581 at 07/03/2025 at 22:42 UTC
18 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I haven't had any problems on Medicare after a lifetime of dealing with whatever crap insurance co's felt like handing out. I'll never know why this country doesn't fight harder to have Medicare for all. Our state and national parks are great. The dept of education in SC was surprisingly good helping a couple of our grandkids with some early speech problems. We take the national weather reporting for granted. I hope that doesn't get ruined. I have no problem funding cancer research and other science.
Comment by AlamutJones at 07/03/2025 at 22:41 UTC
12 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Government does well on the macro scale - provision of **big** projects like highways, or **big** services like defence - where every stage of the project has to be uniform. A rail line crossing several states, for example, would be useless if the track gauge kept changing.
The smaller and more localised the solution, the more specific it has to be, and the more it relies on individual rather than organisational efficiency.
Comment by Sapriste at 08/03/2025 at 02:30 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This isn't the true dichotomy since Republican grow government just as much as Democrats. One could argue that the current imprerial Presidency is an example of expanding government power. The real diffrence between Conservatives and Liberals is worldview. Liberals think that "we are all in this together". Convervatives think that "it is every man for himself".
Comment by Dell_Hell at 07/03/2025 at 22:35 UTC
6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Government can do things effectively and efficiently when Republicans will stop trying to poison the well every single damn time!
That is the biggest problem by far. Every time Republicans get in control they gut funding. They put in ridiculous requirements. They put people in charge who are incompetent. They put people in who are corrupt. They put in people who hate the entire mission of the organization and work directly against it. And all of it is deliberate in an effort to make it so awful people will agree to kill it and privatize it.
Comment by SicilyMalta at 08/03/2025 at 03:02 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Corporations need to make a profit - so they cut service , and raise the price.
Besides the fact that many inventions/medicines are developed in universities with federal money, and they won't be big profitable blockbusters like ED drugs -
In America a package or letter can be mailed from an obscure backwoods town in Alabama all the way to a village in Alaska.
Don't think a private service is going to do that unless the cost is astronomical. Why would they? They are not in business to make citizens' lives better.
Police and firefighters by subscription? Maybe trump will hire all those pardoned violent militia who bought a gun and promised retribution as soon as they stepped out of prison.
Look at almost every small town. Go to Google maps and do a close view. What do you see? A post office, a school, a library. ( Yes even libraries get federal funds.)
You think private schools are going to set up in some little shit town? Especially after fed funds go away and there's no longer a board of ed. Everyone gets to be homeschooled by the nice lady in a trailer who does babysitting?
We are going backwards folks. Very quickly. I thought something like this took 100s of years.
I feel like we are the Britains who watched the Roman Centurions march back home when they no longer got paid. Watched in anxiety as they left the walls unguarded, wondering when they'd come back. Some realizing they'd never come back and quickly buried their gold because the hordes of barbarians were just over the other side of the wall.
Comment by peetnice at 07/03/2025 at 23:50 UTC*
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It depends how you define "well" - meaning maximizing cost-effectiveness? Then in many (but not all) cases, private sector may do better, but when it comes to things like swift emergency response, or dependable dam repairs, etc, I'd say cost is a lesser priority than life-saving and public safety. All depends on what are the priorities of any given service.
And tbh it also depends on what you mean by "government" too, the US federal government, local government, international/any government bodies, etc?
Also it sounds like you're talking mostly about services that are calculated in govt budgets, but there is also the higher level stuff like law-making, adjudicating, etc. Personally don't think outsourcing any of that would be wise.
Basically it depends on how any given society is prioritizing - personally I think that for most of the services the govt currently provides, a less cost-effective public service is preferable over a cost-saving private one (within reason - if/when the level of service begins deteriorating, I think governments need a better means of improvement). The main reason is because in a private system with the pay gap between executives and low level workers, a good portion of the public money will go to the executives, furthering that gap, and the money will go into investment portfolios, stock options, real estate that mostly just inflates your rent as the 1% hoards more of it, etc rather than circulating back into the local economy, as would happen if the bulk of the cost was going directly to the ground level staff.
Comment by SimTheWorld at 07/03/2025 at 23:39 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We’ve gotten to a point where unregulated capitalism is tearing our society apart. Government USE to know how to handle these situations but the Capitalists are now allowed to openly bribe against our own interests.
Now when the country is in a constitutional crisis, the politicians we elected as representation have abandoned us instead.
Government is just the assembly of the countries citizens. It works best when it’s being ran in the interests of the people, and it doesn’t work well when it’s working against it’s people.
Comment by zayelion at 07/03/2025 at 22:50 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Providing services people can't say no to under durest and experimental developments. Basically anything that can only be solved by throwing money or crazies at.
Comment by zeyn1111 at 07/03/2025 at 23:31 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I believe government should be responsible for the general wellbeing of its people. Can they get from point A to B with reliable roads and transportation systems? Can they feel safe from another country’s invasion? Are they able defend their people from communicable diseases? I’ll give our healthcare system which is private and a disaster. Healthcare should be one of the non profit systems. Private healthcare should be an addition to basic socialized healthcare.
Comment by youwillbechallenged at 07/03/2025 at 23:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Virtually all of government, save for national infrastructure and defense, is irrelevant largesse and should be abolished. We are in $36 trillion of debt due to excessive government spending on irrelevancies.
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”
The government should indeed be restrained, to the maximal extent.
Comment by Pale-Candidate8860 at 07/03/2025 at 23:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Children is an example of good and bad for government.
Good: CPS
Bad: Foster Homes(depends, but bad reputation for a reason)
Comment by Farside_Farland at 08/03/2025 at 00:00 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A government (should) provide a standardized service (of any type) dependably.
Comment by Vaulk7 at 08/03/2025 at 01:53 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You have to look at this relatively because the question is a relative question.
How big is a house? The answer really depends on what you're comparing it to.
So what does the government do well? Relatively speaking....and drawing a comparison to the functions the Government executes versus what the private sector can do, I'd say "Almost nothing".
The only things the Government does "Well" are the things that quite literally cannot be done by the private sector. The issue with that idea is that there's not really any evidence that they do them "Well", it's simply a lack of anything to compare it to. There is no private sector for International Peace Treaties and the like...so we don't really know that the Government does it well...we just accept that they're the only ones that do it.
So what does the government do well? Technically nothing...there is no objective evidence to suggest that they do.
Comment by enigma7x at 08/03/2025 at 02:39 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I had the pleasure of doing a video call with an astronaut aboard the ISS in coordination with my school's Aerospace club. I'm not the clubs advisor but I'm in the science department and was aware of it so I stuck around.
Among many other interesting things he commented on how governments are good at taking risks, especially with human lives. You don't want private industry risking lives, nor does private industry want to engage in that. Without governments pushing space exploration, it's not something that would have developed at the rate it did. Instead, the governments of the world used their massive piles of resources to put human beings in harm's way to get us there. Over time, they minimized risk well enough to where now private industry feels like they can start trying to get into low Earth orbit and begin making that process more efficient. Next step for the governments of the world is to minimize risk getting to the moon. Then private industry will follow. After that, Mars.
It's a really great little example of what the government is good at (broad resource intensive endeavors with high risk to human life) and bad at (doing things efficiently with resources and the most up to date tech.) it's scary how old some of the tech is on the ISS...
Comment by civil_politics at 08/03/2025 at 04:15 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You have to define ‘well’
Also are we talking specifically about US government or governments in general?
I would say that the government does fairly well with institutional management - you go to a bank, you’re not worried that your money will disappear, you get pulled over, you’re not worried you’re gonna get asked for a bribe, you need to register your vehicle, it’s not that hard and costs what you expect, etc. all this stuff we take for granted that most countries really struggle with.
As far as programs, I would say BLM does a great job, the SEC and FDA are pretty efficient, obviously our military is in a league of its own although is this done ‘well’ given the incredible cost? I’d say yes, but we are also probably overdoing it a bit.
Comment by gadela08 at 08/03/2025 at 06:06 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So many of these replies are missing the plot entirely.
So many misguided opinions built on the false assumption that the purpose of government is politics ( rather than policy)
If you're looking for any useful answer at all, you need to define "government" first. There is no sense in having government for its own sake. We gotta start from the top down, not bottom up.
What are we solving for as we consider a concept like 'government"?
What is the role of government and what do we need it to do?
Is the government there to serve the people? Or are the people there to serve the government?
Do we want absolute democracy where the people govern themselves ? Or do we prefer if a small subset of well-informed individuals make the decisions on our behalf? If we trust the masses to make rational decisions why even bother setting up a government in the first place?
Then we ask - what do we want out of this? And are we aligned on these ideas as a society? Do we know what we want or do we need to set up some sort of framework to help us decide? And how do we know for sure if what we've chosen is actually good for us? And how do we determine what is good or bad and how will we know that's the outcome that will happen?
These are the questions of Normative Ethics vs descriptive ethics- philosophical questions that society needs to agree on before you begin to set up a government.
I am exhausted with the crude reductionist view in American politics that Democrats = large government and Republicans = small government.
The question we should be asking- in all instances of policymaking - is whether society needs to (collectively) intervene in some aspect of life to achieve a more desirable outcome.
If every political discussion began with this question things would be so much more level headed
We can politely disagree about whether intervention should or should not occur and respective values of costs and benefits thereof
We can politely disagree about the method of intervention, and the severity and scale of that intervention.
We can also politely disagree on what the targeted objectives of the intervention can be.
We can also politely disagree on the manner in which those objectives are measured and reported.
The collective agreement on the above rules is how we determine government, and ultimately set policy for how to run society.
The government is then the collective body in which society makes rules and enforces them on itself, ideally for its own good.
Once the government is set up, what do we want it to do and how much power should it have? Do we want to take a position on whether government intervention is good or bad? Should the government be paternal or laissez faire ?
All of these questions have gotten lost in the modern Republican vs Democrat debate. Partisans rely on "rules of thumb" to test whether ideas check out with their party. That is too simple minded and It really shouldn't be this way. I've read enough History to appreciate that the freedoms and liberties entitled to Americans are uncommonly rare among societies. An educational foundation in Civics is how we preserve this tradition and pass it on to future generations.
So, Politics is just the game we play -using the rules of government - to determine how policymaking power moves back and forth across stakeholders.
The plot is lost when the people think that "Government" is nothing more than a game that must be won. The Meaningless exchange of power without any focus on problem solving undermines the reason the government was there in the first place.
If we can agree on this basic definition we'd be so much better off.
Comment by WinnieThePooPoo73 at 08/03/2025 at 07:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Government could actually do everything better, cheaper, and more efficiently
the reason it doesn’t is because capitalists and those in the private sector are incentivized to sabotage our cheaper/better options so they can create a market of manufactured scarcity and desperation, this allows them to commodify products and services for profits.
This framing also buys into the myth that the private sector does things better than the government. Which is funny, because these systems create administrative bloat and create inefficiencies as a result of their profit incentives. The service/product gets worse with time - as they rely on less underpaid staff, cheaper materials and instruments, and charge people more for their services. All to squeeze out extra profits for those who only fulfill an administrative position or who are only a passive investor.
Having a public option that works well and is affordable is every corporations nightmare.
You think insurance companies and drug companies want you to have affordable healthcare and drugs? Hell No they don’t. They want you to pay out the nose, to make the process of getting your coverage a long dragged out ordeal.
It’s the same across every industry. World would be better if our governments served the workers who labored in these industries and served the elites less. We need union owned industries with workplace democracy. We could have free and awesome public services, free high quality healthcare, free high quality education, free housing
But we don’t, because the richest in the world convinced everyone they’re a temporarily embarrassed capitalist, instead of a worker enslaved to a system that hates them
Comment by Business_Respond_189 at 08/03/2025 at 12:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Great at causing problems that weren’t there, bad at solving and fixing the problems they caused.
Comment by baxterstate at 08/03/2025 at 13:14 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Government is good at getting the big things done if cost is no object because they can use force. They can go to war or build an interstate highway system because there isn’t anyone to say no, and funding isn’t a primary concern.
As long as the private sector has competition, they are good at improving their services or products.
The dirty little secret is, the private sector HATES competition and will try hard to get rid of it, because it’s easier than doing a better job than the competition. That’s why airlines and supermarkets are always trying to merger. That’s why they have lobbies in Washington and boards that set rates and limit their own numbers.
Unfortunately government has no incentive to be efficient; in fact quite the opposite. If they do better with less funding, they’ll get less funding!
If 50+1% of the drivers in NH want to buy Subarus, the other 49.9% don’t have to buy Subarus.
In Politics we are all forced to buy the person who won the election no matter how small the margin.
Comment by dmbgreen at 08/03/2025 at 14:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Keeping our country safe. They are great at wasting money and terrible at getting rid of policies or departments that are not working or efficient.