This is neither original nor insightful. The political economic function of government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elabor

This is neither original nor insightful. The political economic function of government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. An elaborate government apparatus exists to manage vast social programs for business. The US Patent Office is one small example, but there are many others that would be apparent, were it not for pervasive anti-government rhetoric. Another example is limited liability. Without the enforcement of limited liability, elementary transactions we take for granted--mutual funds, for example--would be inconceivable. Misunderstanding about the relation between business and government is encouraged and systematically exploited. For example, Wall Street likes to create the misleading impression that it wants government out of its business. According to regulators in Washington, Wall Street wants government to give it business. And Wall Street is getting it, off the backs of the working and middle classes. While I agree that the system is dysfunctional, I disagree about the political economic function of government. Anti-government rhetoric is the diametric opposite of the truth, which is that the political economic function of the government is to ensure that markets function under controlled conditions. Instead, you hear that the government is not (or should not be) the insurer of last resort and that negative externalities and risk pools do not exist. Not a single one of the anti-government rhetoricians have provided a useful measure of efficiency, incidentally. They conveniently tend to forget that big corporations are bureaucracies as well.