I should really have been more precise with the question. I meant that governments provide functional services in many countries, without the cost-spirals descr

I should really have been more precise with the question. I meant that governments provide functional services in many countries, without the cost-spirals described in the parent. To me government is just, "we'll get you out of the prisoner's dilemma by providing a framework for forced cooperation, but we'll also misalign incentives in a way that introduces some inefficiencies". In many countries, this trade-off is often good value --- but in the US, something always seems to go wrong. That's what I didn't understand. For instance, in my country, Australia, our government provides interest-at-inflation loans to all students for undergraduate degrees. The loans are repaid via income tax, and repayments only begin once your income exceeds a certain threshold. Almost nobody defaults, since the payments are just subtracted from your paycheque before it even gets to you, just like your income tax. At the same time the repayments are calculated to never be too onerous, and you're only ever paying the principle. I don't know what stops universities from inflating their fees --- presumably the government has guidelines for costs of courses eligible for these loans. A typical 3 year arts degree might cost about $30k. The good universities are about on par with the good US state schools in rankings. We don't have any universities equivalent in quality to the top tier US schools. I believe this is a sane and sustainable system. Our single payer health care system isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the USA's system. It's possible that it does come down to the subtleties of our electoral systems. It seems a little unintuitive to me, since folks here do mostly make their choice between the two major parties and pull for whichever they like. On the other hand we do have single transferable vote for our senate, which always elects some independents who represent their constituents. We also have compulsory voting, so you can't pull any shenanigans to disenfranchise people or discourage them from voting.