Hardly a day goes by that we don't read or hear the proclamation that if we just make a law, or if the government would just fix this or that, we'll have a utopia.

Yet, the more government does, the worse things get. As noted back in 2008  when people are asked to name ten government ministries, departments or agencies that fulfil their mandate no one has yet been up to the challenge.

Also, most people you speak with complain bitterly whenever they need to utilise services provided by government ministries, departments or agencies.

You name the area:

1. Education.
2. Law & Order
3. Health Care.
4. Garbage Collection
5. Immigration

The list goes on.

This is not to say that the private sector is perfect, nor is it to suggest that all civil servants are incompetent. However, it does suggest a growing impatience with government services in general.

And guess what? Unlike when we go to a retail store to purchase goods or services and they are lousy, we can't simply go to another government. And to top it off, in many instances it's against the law for us to solve our problem ourselves once government decides they're in charge. In many instances we can be jailed, fined or both.

Now what other business has the power to force you to do business with them like a government?

Given governments track record, we should be calling for them to go out of business in many of the areas that they have taken over, yet we continually call on them to take our responsibilities unto themselves.

And we do this, safe in the knowledge that they're already responsible for many of the problems we face each day when doing business with them and otherwise. Of course it's not for the want of good intentions by many of the political class, it's just that the gap between desire and results continues to widen.

Expecting another law or government to fix things is one of life's great paradoxes.

The free market is the answer to create growth which benefits most people. Government growth is a drag on economic growth and takes them away from their main purpose – Police, Courts and maybe basic infrastructure.

As Ayn Rand wrote in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal;

"If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants – you may be sure that whatever their motives, love for man is not one of them."

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This post is an updated version of a blog from July 13, 2008. Read it here…