why do we need government in our society?

Answers to why do we need government in our society

Do we actually need the government? Is it possible to live without laws or rulers? Because man needs a moral limits, the government is absolutely necessary.

A government is a body that has the power to make and enforce laws within an organization or group. In the broadest sense, “to govern” means to manage or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set of people, or a collection of assets. A God-ordained government acts like a restraint on man’s selfishness and regulates his societal interactions when necessary. The primary duty of a government is to reward the people who do good things and punish the wrongdoers.

Do we actually need more government in the United States? To determine this, we need to know the answer to three other questions. First, is there room for improvement in government programs? Have we reached the limits of what government can do in most policy areas, or could expanding these current programs produce significant added benefits to society? Second, are any of our current social and economic problems worsening? Are we facing new and serious threats to our wellbeing? If so, this would logically indicate the need for more government. And finally, can we rely on markets and individual effort to solve these current and emerging problems? If so, then we don’t need more government. But if markets and individual initiative are not up to the task, this bolsters the case for more government. All three of these questions are large and complex ones, but as this article will show, we can begin to get some definitive answers to all of them. These answers strongly indicate that we do need more government – not less – in the United States.

As impressive as the accomplishments of government are in the U.S., there is clearly room for it to play a much more constructive role in people’s lives. In fact, many Americans sense this already. One of the most common complaints about government is that it is not doing enough to address a whole raft of problems. Sure the air is cleaner than it was, but we still have major smog problems in many cities. Of course we have done much to reduce poverty among the elderly, but a high level of poverty among the general population still exists. And while Medicare and Medicaid have greatly increased the people covered by health insurance, 47 million people remain uninsured. Some may be tempted to conclude from these situations that government simply can’t do anything more to help – that we have reached the limits of what government can do in these areas. But this is not the case. We know that government could actually do much more. How do we know this? Because governments in many other advanced democracies have already done much more to effectively address these problems.

Things are Getting Worse
The case for more government is strengthened even more if it can be shown that some of our current problems are worsening and/or that we face significant new threats to our quality of life. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, few Americans disagreed with the idea that we needed major new government initiatives to deal with the growing menace of terrorism. Likewise, it also makes sense that we would need more government if we are facing other worsening problems. And in fact we are. Let’s just consider a few of them.

   * Health Care Crisis. There is almost universal agreement that the U.S. health care system is increasingly in crisis. Costs continue to spiral out of control. Amazingly, the elderly must spend a larger proportion of their income on their medical expenses today than they did in the early 1960s before the passage of Medicare.3 To make matters worse, businesses increasingly are not offering health insurance to their employees, or are making them foot most of the bill for coverage. The number of medically uninsured Americans has now risen to over 47 million, with over 75 million people going unprotected in a given two-year period.

   * Growing Environmental Problems. A number of environmental problems are getting worse. The most obvious one is global warming, which will bring with it extensive coastal flooding, agriculture crop declines, rising danger from tropical diseases, increasingly severe weather, and so on. But there are also other environmental issues that are getting worse rather than better. Consider the plight of U.S. fisheries. Over-fishing has resulted in disastrous declines in fish stocks off New England, the Gulf of Mexico, and other areas. Increasing toxic waste from discarded computers and other electronics is another emerging problem.

   * Increasing Economic Inequality. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking – all threatening to further divide American society along class lines. Income inequality is getting worse. Between 1979 and 2001, the incomes for the richest 5% of families grew by a whopping 81%; and incomes for the richest 20% by an impressive 53%. But the increases for the bottom 80% of families have been pitiful in comparison – their gains were barely 14%. Today almost half of all income in this country (47.4%) goes to the top fifth income class of families. The income going to the top 5% of richest families is actually more than the combined income of the bottom 40%  – the 110 million Americans living on low and moderate incomes.

   * Crumbling Infrastructure. Around the country, crucial infrastructure facilities – roads, bridges, sewers, etc. – are rapidly deteriorating. For example, as of 2000, 27.5% of the nation's bridges (162,000) were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In addition, the nation's 16,000 wastewater systems face enormous needs. Some sewer systems are 100 years old and many treatment facilities are past their recommended life expectancy. Currently, there is a $12 billion annual shortfall in funding for these infrastructure needs. Also, airport capacity had increased only 1% from 1991 to 2001, yet air traffic had increased 35% during that same period. The American Society of Civil Engineers argues that we must dramatically increase funding to solve these and other infrastructure problems – and it estimates that it will take at least $1.6 trillion to bring these facilities into an acceptable state.

   * New Disease Threats. A whole host of new and evolving diseases now threaten public health in the United States. They range from the Hantavirus to new and more dangerous forms of e-coli that affect the food supply. Globalization and tourism mean that new diseases are more easily finding their way into this country. The West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis have already arrived. The main concern now is that a more virulent and deadly form of the bird-flu is going to eventually come to the United States, with potentially devastating results.

   * Looming Retirement Crisis. Social Security is in good shape at least for the foreseeable future. But the other two forms of support that retirees hope to rely on – private pensions and private savings – are in terrible shape for most people. Fewer and fewer companies are offering fixed benefit pension plans, and it is estimated that U.S. companies are underfunding current pension plans to the tune of $350 billion – a disaster waiting to happen. Stagnant wages have made it difficult for many workers to save any money for retirement – overall U.S. savings rates are approaching all time lows. As a result, many Americans may be facing poverty – or at least a much lower standard of living – when they retire.

   * Deteriorating Public Education System. Many local public school budgets are in crisis, with teachers being laid off and textbooks in short supply. There is a growing divide between the quality of public education offered in rich communities and that in poor communities. Due to either aging, outdated facilities, severe overcrowding, or new mandated class sizes, 75% of our nation's school buildings remain inadequate to meet the needs of school children. State colleges and universities -- which produce three quarters of all degrees in the United States – are also in trouble. Class sizes are spiraling, and needed maintenance is being neglected. In addition, states have been raising their tuitions and cutting financial aid. A recent study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave the public college and university systems in 43 states a grade of “F” for affordability.5 This means that many low- and middle-income students simply cannot afford college anymore – a half million were turned away for lack of money in 2004 alone.

The presence of these kinds of serious and worsening societal problems – and these are not the only ones – would seem to go a very long ways toward justifying the expansion of public sector efforts to address them.

Why we definitely need a Government
There is, then, a great deal of evidence that strongly suggests that Americans would be better off with more – not less – government. We know from the experience of other advanced democracies that our government could be doing more to address many of the problems we face as a society. We also know that some of these problems are getting worse, and other additional serious problems are emerging. Finally, it is clear that non-governmental approaches – markets and individuals efforts – are in many cases not sufficient to deal with all of these problems.

Of course all of this does not tell us exactly what new kinds of public efforts are needed. We still need to critically analyze proposed policies and programs to figure out which ones will be most effective in addressing these social, economic, and environmental problems. And there is also the difficult question of deciding how much we want to spend to alleviate these problems. But one thing that we do know for sure at this point is that if the government does nothing more, or actually does less, our quality of life is going to suffer. In today’s world, we need a well-funded public sector that will do more to reduce the risks we face and to improve the lives of all Americans.

Another View
There are a wide range of theories about the reasons for establishing governments. There are four major reasons for establishing a government: greed and oppression, order and tradition, natural rights, and social contract.

Greed and Oppression
Many political viewpoints that are opposed to the existence of a government (such as Anarchism), as well as others, give emphasis to the historical roots of governments – the fact that governments originated from authority who took, by force, certain regions of land as their own. Once they took that land they began to exercise authority over the people of that land. It is argued that governments exist to enforce the will of the strong and dominate the weak.

Order and Tradition
Various types of conservatism generally see the government as a positive power that conveys order out of chaos, establishes laws to end “the war against all”, punishes vice while encouraging moral virtue, and respects tradition. At times, in this view, the government is seen as something ordained by a higher power, such as a king, which human beings have a duty to obey.

Natural Rights
The basis for the theory of government shared by most branches of liberalism is natural rights. In this view, human beings are born with certain natural rights, and governments are established to protect those rights. What the natural rights are is a matter of dispute among liberals. Each branch of liberalism has its own set of rights it considers to be natural; sometimes these rights are mutually exclusive with the rights supported with other liberals.

Social Contract
The social contract has been one of the most influential theories of government in the past two hundred years, on which modern democracy and most forms of socialism are established. The social contract theory holds that governments are created by the people in order to provide communal needs that cannot be appropriately fulfilled using purely individual means. Governments exist for the purpose of serving the needs and desires of the people, and the government’s relationship with the people is clearly stipulated in a “social contract” (a constitution and a set of laws). Both the government and the people must abide by this contract.

Governments can be classified in many ways. All governments belong to one of four major groups: theocracy, autocracy, democracy, and republic.

Theocracy
Theocracy is a government under the direct rule of God. The first man, Adam, lived under a theocracy.

Autocracy
Any system of government in which the power and authority to rule are in the hands of a single individual is an autocracy. This is one of the most common and oldest forms of government. Historically, most autocrats have maintained their positions of authority by inheritance.

Several forms of autocracy exist. One is absolute or totalitarian dictatorship. In totalitarian dictatorship, the ideas of a single leader or group of leaders are glorified. The government seeks to control all aspects of social and economic life.
Monarchy is another form of autocracy. In a monarchy a king, queen, or emperor exercises the supreme powers of government. Monarchs usually inherit their positions.

Democracy
A democracy is any system of government in which the people have the rule. The ancient Greeks used the word democracy to mean government by the many in contrast to government by the few. They key of democracy is that the people hold ultimate power. Abraham Lincoln best captured this spirit by describing democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Democracy may take one of two forms. In a direct democracy, the people govern themselves by voting on issues individually as citizens.

In indirect or representative democracy, the people elect representatives and give them the responsibility and authority to make laws and to conduct government.

Republic
In a republic, voters hold sovereign power. The citizens elect or acquiesce to representatives. These representatives are charged with the responsibility of carrying out the administration of the government according to the law rather than their wishes or the wishes of the people. Under a true republic, citizens are subject to a written body of laws rather than to the whims of one man or a group of men.

In His relationship with man, God has established three institutions for the wellbeing of mankind. These institutions are the family, government, and the church. At different times in history, these authority structures have been more or less influential in the affairs of men. At some times and places, the family was the primary authority; at other times and in some places, it was the church; and at others it was the government. In practically every nation on Earth today, the government is the primary ruling body, and in some cases it has taken the power that rightfully belongs to the family and the church.

Government is a necessity to man. If all of mans laws and constitutions were based on Scriptural principles, then crime and prejudice would be eliminated from our societies, and we would not have to experience injustice, slavery, oppression and war. But the likeliness of all men following the principles is almost nonexistent. Man is too likely to drift from God’s way. Unfortunately, man continues to neglect the principles contained in the Bible.

Disclaimer - Answers to the questions are researched using various sources and are meant to increase the knowledge of our visitors. We cannot gurantee the accuracy of answers to questions.

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