Why do we need a government anyway?
Carl Staab
2/7/00
	Governments are universally problematic.  Really, it’s not the governments that are the problem, it’s the people who run them.  Governments are like computers, really; one way or another, everything that a government does wrong is somehow human error.  Governments only screw up so much because people do.  What, then, is the best government, the one that is least vulnerable to the stupidity of its members?
	Monarchy (or any sort of rule by one person) is a unique form of government because essentially one person controls everything.  This is good if the person is sensible, because then the whole government works well.  If the person is stupid, however, government goes down the tubes.  So monarchy will work out to be a string of good times followed by excessively bad ones which more than cancel out the good.  Even if it starts out with a good ruler, no method has ever been successfully devised to keep the stupid people from ruling.  So monarchy isn’t really that great.
	Communism, in theory, is probably the best kind of government.  The major problem with Communism in theory is that “the people” magically seem to own and control everything.  In the real world, whichever revolutionary leader establishes the Communist government decides that “the people” means him and a few of his best buddies.  Now, if these leaders turn out to be great, sensible people then the government will actually be better than monarchy- it’ll be much harder to get stupid people into power.  Unfortunately, the great, sensible people usually don’t become insane Communist revolutionaries, so Communism just doesn’t work.
	Democracy breaks about even.  If more than half the citizens are sensible, then there’s never much of a problem.  If more than half are stupid, then democracy starts to break up.  People who start democracies are always optimists.  They’re not like establishers of other forms of government, who generally want power.  People who establish democracies believe that most people are sensible.
	You may be convinced now that our government is mediocre, but better than the rest.  That’s partially true, but I haven’t come to our government yet.  Bureaucracies are the best form of government.  That is because they don’t actually do anything.  This is comparable to anarchy with one major difference.  In anarchy, everyone knows that there’s no government.  In bureaucracy, however, “the scum rises to the top”.  The stupid people get drawn into the government, where they are kept effectively neutralized, while the sensible people go on with life.  Bureaucracy is simply the best possible government.