What is government?

Governments at all levels are businesses and should be judged on the delivery of core services.  The rest is entertainment.  What can government do, who can do it better, and what should government be doing at all?  

Notable and Quotable: David Mamet

Government is only a business

From "The Sectet Knowledge" (2011), by David Mamet:

Gov­ern­ment is only a busi­ness. Past the roads, de­fense, and sew­ers, it sells ex­cite­ment and self-sat­is­faction to the masses, and charges them an en­ter­tain­ment tax, ex­acted in wealth and mis­ery. It can­not make cars, or de­velop med­i­cines. How can it “abol­ish poverty” (at home or abroad), or Bring About an End to Greed or Ex­ploita­tion? It can only sell the illusion, and put it­self in a po­si­tion where it is free from judgment of its ef­forts. It does this, first of all, by stat­ing in­choate goals, “change, hope, fair­ness, peace,” and then in­dict­ing those who ques­tion them as trai­tors or ogres; fi­nally, it ex­plains its lack of suc­cess by reference to per­sis­tent if mag­i­cal forces put in play by its pre­de­ces­sors and yet unerad­i­cated because of in­suf­ficient fund­ing. 

Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2015