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Comment by forward1 | Hacker News Reader

Can you name some issues governments have solved with taxpayer funds?

Need for defense, education, water, fire fighting/regulations, sewer, trash/recycling pickup, and once in a while workers rights and anti-trust. (Depending on ones definition of 'solved'.)

Yes thank goodness those monopolies are gone and our cities are all clean and safe from fires and our sewage and road infrastructure is in top condition

I'd agree those needs haven't been solved permanently. Hence the need for vigilance and a strong government that's controlled by the people, not the rich or high born.

These discussions are exasperating for me because I always go where? Where in this world is this strong government that's controlled by the average joe and not by the rich or high born. It seems like some enlightenment era utopian fantasy that people haven't grown out of

It's an ideal to strive for. Rarely reached. Yet things get better the closer we are to it, and worse the farther away.

All of those sit on the shoulders of private business and enterprise. Government (and bureaucracy generally) only prevents them from efficiently executing on what the market demands of them.

Before workers rights, regulation, and public education the industrialized world was much more privatized and also quite bleak.

Private industry has its place. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to outsource governance to them in all but name.

Smallpox is no longer a disease (anywhere in the world) thanks to public health services funded by governments. Likewise polio is on the way out (with an unfortunate recent spike due to some parents not vaccinating their children for "reasons").

Water-spread diseases like cholera which used to kill thousands every few years in in places like New York or London in the 19th century are basically unknown today in the developed world, thanks to modern water treatment plants and sewers. While you might say there was some contribution to these efforts by private philanthropists, the vast majority of these public health efforts were government (taxpayer) funded.

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