All the noise about the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) lopping off unneeded chunks of the Federal Government and the horrified response by the big government-favoring progressive left got me thinking about what the purpose of Government is in the modern world and how we can match it to those goals.

My take on the question will shock and horrify others, but hear me out. The purpose of modern Government is to provide the structure for free and open markets to thrive. These markets are another way of saying people can freely and safely interact.

Markets are the best way to allocate resources to better the human condition. Nothing, including the various forms of socialism, mercantilism, feudalism, or tribalism, has lifted humanity more than free and open markets. If you don’t accept this, I urge you to read “Super Abundance.” As the structures necessary for markets to thrive expanded, humanity’s living standards have dramatically improved, even as its numbers have grown.

The reasons for market superiority aren’t hard to find. Billions of people using the latest information will arrive at better decisions and make them quicker than the relatively few elites in Government. In the information age, this advantage only grows.

Markets are the most democratic form of choice. People vote for their preferences. These are hard choices because their money is involved rather than theoretical. We are all human, so markets make mistakes momentarily but self-correct as new information enters the continuous exchange. We invest funds to receive a proper return. If the profit potential leaves, so do we.

If you accept this premise, then the structure of Government will follow. Capital investment is needed to move us forward. Capital is foregone consumption. Facing loss deters investment. Protecting private property is the first structural job of the Government. Whether the theft threat is domestic or foreign, the Government must justly administer laws and provide a military and police force to protect people’s property, including their bodies.

The Government itself is often the most feared predator. The U.S.S.R. first seized all the property in the Soviet Union and then threatened to do so worldwide, thus being both a domestic and foreign hazard. The Government favoring one economic participant over another by picking winners and losers is a less blatant theft but still lethal.

If we keep the primary principle as our Government’s guide, we’ll make more informed decisions. Take the whole push for electric vehicles (EVs), for instance. In my morning Arizona Republic paper, I read about the dumping of a billion-dollar lithium battery plant because it didn’t get promised federal financing: EVs and electricity storage were the target customers. The question is why the Government is involved in the first place.

Was this an industry that needed evenhanded government structural support to show off its comparative advantage over world competitors? Maybe the State Department is negotiating lower tariff walls that keep out our better-value product.

It’s the other way around. China, the world’s major producer of lithium batteries, is the lowest-price producer. It’s not hard to see why. They also are the leader in producing all the elements used in batteries. To displace the market leaders in anything, you must develop something cheaper or better or replace their product to the consumer’s benefit.

The definition of wasteful investment is subsidizing the production of anything you can’t profitably make otherwise. This profligacy is foolish and unsustainable unless there is an overriding national security necessity.

The billion-dollar battery plant has no apparent comparative advantage, so if the Government wasn’t investing the money, it certainly would fail in the marketplace- no subsidy, no plant.

What if the Government provided the structural framework enhancing the plant’s ability to compete instead of a subsidy? There is no lack of lithium deposits and other rare earths needed in the U.S. Streamlined mine permitting might mean cheaper local sourcing. The U.S. has generally lower energy costs than most industrial nations. Adding closeby processing and high-tech automation serving a large market might bring private capital to see profit possibilities. The taxpayer is off the hook, and risk/reward is where it should be with venture capital.

In our present circumstance, mining anything in the U.S. is nearly impossible. I’ve often cited the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, seeking approval, which is approaching its third decade. Building a processing plant is equally tricky. To get a government subsidy, you have to use union labor. Look at the recent port union negotiations to see what unions think of automation.

This project could only go forward with subsidies and tariff protection. Who pays the price? We do with higher prices or taxes.

Given the proper government structure, a profitable venture is possible. However, in today’s framework, the market warns you that you have a boondoggle. With China mainly using cheap coal for energy, we don’t even have an energy cost advantage.

Use this test with virtually every government endeavor. You might wonder if the rest of our Green New Deal policies have sunk under scrutiny. The Trump administration will likely curb subsidies, leading to predictions of tanking EV sales. We canceled Windmill Projects, and solar arrays are closing down.

If the Government made things easier, it would make economic sense to markets, so they’d continue without government support. We’ll never know because no one in the Biden administration thought it was the Government’s job description.

I know what many of you are thinking: This nut will let people starve, big business monopolies will crush us, and what about the children? Look closer; you’ll find that hunger has declined worldwide, where markets have gained more dominance. A free and open structure makes for easy entry by anyone with a better idea. Show me any long-lasting monopoly that the Government doesn’t shield. Think about would-be monopolies such as America Online. More choice empowers consumers rather than oppresses them.

Your homework assignment is to find any policy controversy we can’t improve by structuring the government response to favor a market-based solution. You can find it in education, poverty, energy, etc.  

(These ideas arise from my series, “The Long Journey to More,” on this site)