Why are governments essential? More accurately, what are the pillars of a “good” government? For most of us, a government suffices the taxes we pay if every road we drive on is free of potholes, there are clean, free-to-use public restrooms, the train stations and airports run smoothly, and other such affirmations of our privileges. But is this complete governance? Of course, managing defenses, regulating trade, and delivering justice are its roles too, but what is the ideal relationship between the government and any individual under its purview?
In reality, the biggest flaw in this relationship is building its core around authority and obeisance. The norm, said or unsaid, permeates most nations that the government knows best and as long as we simply follow all its commands and orders, all shall be well. To disobey is to be a threat to society, an endangerer of peace. A whole bouquet of challenges arises from this equation, many of them violent and contagious. And we try to solve these issues by tackling the asymmetry at the surface, never even thinking that maybe the deepest, most elemental questions and answers of governance need transformation.
The ideal, optimal government is that which seeks to develop self-governance in all its citizens. It builds infrastructure aimed at creating a better leader out of every one of us. The ideal government is a harmonious marriage of republicanism and anarchism.
To self-govern is to become that version of oneself who successfully bears complete responsibility for one’s well-being and growth in all areas of life along with being useful to the well-being and growth of those around him. Easier said than done, right? But if a government has that same goal, and builds national-level infrastructure and facilities to help every citizen along that path, the whole landscape transforms. And the simplest way to accomplish that is through education. Academic, vocational, physical, technical, financial, emotional, interpersonal, athletic, of as many kinds as possible. Education is but exposure to a novel stimulus to create learning, cause absorption of knowledge, and trigger adaptation to make an individual better at handling his environment. Enough education in varied fields and themes, and a person is equipped enough to courageously handle whatever life may throw at him; it is exactly this form of development that a government needs to foster throughout a population, to awaken the natural leader in all of us, because leadership is an instinctual drive in humans, everyone just has different catalysts for it.
Ironically, the better a government gets at governance, the less it needs to govern its citizens. As more and more people became intensely responsible for themselves and their environments, as they surmount tougher and tougher challenges to reach newer levels of skill and tenacity, every citizen becomes a far more functional and active part of the socio-cultural milieu. People are changed from being passive spectators in their own lives to practitioners of dynamic living.
Just this short essay about how I view governance won’t actually change how the government works, but maybe it can begin to change how we think about governance and its purposes and the mechanisms through which those purposes are fulfilled. Maybe this will spark enough curiosity in you to inquire into ideas of self-governance. If it makes you think more deeply and look more intently, my effort would not have been in vain.
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