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Originally Posted by McG
I would like to suggest Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand for some bedtime reading. the short version is "his notion that individuals' efforts to pursue their own interest may frequently benefit society more than if their actions were directly intending to benefit society."
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While wealth of nations is a good way to find out what Adam smith said, Thinking Fast and Slow is a much better primer on how people actually act.
National Security, Fire, Roads, Health care, and retirement planning are all areas where governments routinely make better decisions or better deals than individuals. Basically anything that requires long term planning or a lot of negotiating power to get a good deal is better handled by the government than by the average individual.
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People will always spend their money better than the government. Proof? You spend your money better than I can spend your money. If you don't see that, you should vote NDP and let them tell you how to spend your money.
In Canada, we have developed a nasty and expensive habit of not only telling people how to spend their money, but actually spending it for them. That isn't a political statement because all political parties in Canada do it. Some just do it better than others.
And that's the end of my point.
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And that proof completely fails. While I can spend my money better then you can, we are both individuals. The government is not an individual and as such your proof fails as is a false analogy. The relative strengths of governments and individuals are such that governments are better at some things, while individuals are better at others. That one individual is worse than another is irrelevant to the discussion.