OnGovernment

Quora Answer : What would progressives think of a government that provided infrastructure, a minimalist military, public education, emergency healthcare, and bare-minimum welfare?

Feb 11, 2018

I'd ask what had happened to the police, courts and justice system. Who was going to be responsible for checking up that food was safe. That working conditions were safe. That air travel was safe.

I'd ask how orphaned children would be looked after and given a fair start in life. How the mentally ill would be cared for with both their and others' safety in mind. How the elderly would be cared for if they had no family. How we'd protect the environment from pollution. And the great wild spaces from destruction.

I'd ask who would negotiate trade deals with other countries. Who would manage the electromagnetic spectrum. What mechanisms would be in place to ensure that some people's lives were not made a misery by other people's prejudices.

And that would just be in the first five minutes before I really started thinking about it ...

Quora Answer : Why do we wait for a capitalist savior like Elon musk to build the new society instead of the government directly utilizing all of the resources of the nation to build the future?

Dec 5

The problem with governments. Or at least democratic ones. Is that their legitimacy comes from "doing what the people want"

But their main failures come from the people being genuinely divided about what they want.

Just look around and you can see how divided we are.

Even stuff that should be obvious and uncontroversial, like some public health initiatives to prevent thousands of people dying of a major new illness, gets so politicised that it's impossible for the government to do anything without people resisting (often in the form of armed mobs)

In fact there are armed mobs protesting having to follow government initiates merely because they are initiatives from the government.

This makes it hard. While there are plenty of people who disagree with or disapprove of Musk, our society generally respects his freedom to use his resources as he likes.

People believe that Musk can get stuff done and the government can't.

Naive people think this is a fault of government "inefficiency". But it's much more about coherence of purpose. China can get things done just the way Musk can.