Essential Government Intervention

The first and foremost task of the government is to govern a nation and not meddle in the lives of its citizens - macro versus micro management. Therefore, for a society to run optimally, the government should create the best circumstances to where people can help themselves and live up to their potential: It should implement flexible labor laws and a favorable investment and business climate, thus safeguarding a finely tuned and steadily growing and producing economy; and it should provide affordable and high quality education, health care, and infrastructure. However, society also has an ethical responsibility for those who truly cannot help themselves, such as young children, the elderly, and the disabled. It would not be just to leave those people to their own devices and society as a whole must see to their care, not only because it is the morally right thing to do but also because it would negatively affect the welfare of a nation and its economy if these people were left to suffer and die since potential resources are going to waste and social problems would drag down the performance of society as a whole. There are various ways for a government to deal with those issues; it can either directly administer a social welfare system that is funded by tax revenue and/or it can subsidize private organizations to administer these services.

In practice, considering a state’s existing poverty level and the resulting social problems, predominantly in its low-income areas, such as inner city ghettos and slums, the problem has potential to become chronic and without the necessary changes. Much of the time the poor are impoverished either because they do not have the capacity to acquire wealth due to a lack of education (either because of poor quality or because they choose not to take advantage of educational opportunities) or through a cultural passage of values that continually places a group of people in a position of deficit. The most obvious example of the latter is seen in the high number of black children who are raised by single mothers because of teen pregnancies and the high percentage of young black males occupying prisons, as many of them are motivated by negative peer influences and get involved with crime and only a select few force themselves “out of the projects.” While the government could and should provide the opportunity and circumstances as described in the opening paragraph, additionally, the cultural forces shape the future of many and continue the cycle through the generations. Changing a culture would have to be done by those who are part of it, but it is the responsibility of the government to facilitate those changes by doing its job (as described in the opening paragraph). Without opportunity, proper education, health care, and infrastructure, the impoverished are totally dependent on society through government intervention in the form of food stamps, welfare payments, medicaid, etc., and aid provided through private donations. People are generous and private organizations do a remarkable job with the help of significant private donations, but the care of the needy should not fall solely on their shoulders, unless there arrangements are made in the form of subsidies funded through taxes. Even if fellow citizens were generous enough to act like good Samaritans, without the authority and the means to make structural changes that would efficiently solve poverty the way a government would and should, the solution would be temporary, as the only way to nix the root of the problem is to provide the impoverished the ways and means to attain their own wealth. Government is the only structure that can enact laws and put systems into place that provide the structure needed for the impoverished to help themselves while providing the necessary assistance, with the support of private organizations and donations, to those who truly cannot help themselves.