What is the purpose of government?

“The purpose of government is to improve the conditions of people’s lives.” That is the best summation of why societies need governments that I’ve heard in quite a while, a statement that the Mayor of Peoria, Illinois — Dr. Rita Ali — made during a press conference I attended a few years ago.

A government is simply the framework we use to publicly organize ourselves. Private organizations use “governance,” but the principles are the same: We rely on governments to do what we cannot or will not do for ourselves. I don’t need to walk up to the Mt. Tabor reservoirs — or travel out to Bull Run — to gather water for myself; I rely on the city’s water system. I don’t have to grow my own food, I can buy my groceries from any number of stores. Growing up, I didn’t have to seek the privilege of a patron or the church to gain an education, I benefitted from a great public education system.

The purpose of government is to improve the conditions of people’s lives, but government cannot do so without our . We are responsible for finding our own happiness, but we can find that happiness only if our governments provide the conditions for us to do so. Those conditions include:

• Laws that protect and guarantee fundamental rights;
• Law enforcement and court systems that uphold those laws fairly and justly;
• Infrastructure that supports mobility and commerce;
• Systems that provide us access to food, water, housing health care, education, and other essential needs;
• Transparent legislative deliberations, budgeting, and other governance efforts;
• Appropriate land use and environmental regulations; and
• Civic and cultural institutions that build trust and understanding.

We the People are guaranteed rights to participate in our governments under our federal and state constitutions. We are also ultimately responsible for participating in those governments to some minimal extent. The minimum I expect from “We the People” is that we all do our part to ensure we’re relying on good information when voting for our elected representatives. We don’t all have to be experts on every aspect of making our governments work well, we just need to elect eligible and qualified representatives to make those decisions on our behalf. We can leave government up to the experts, but we still have to know enough about government to make good, informed decisions about the people we’re voting for.

Which is terribly difficult these days. Social media has turned our media landscape into a morass of misinformation, disinformation, AI slop, and outright propaganda. When I first started in politics, learning enough to make good, informed political decisions was fairly easy. Today, it’s nearly impossible and incredibly frustrating. At best.

But that is a topic for another conversation.

For now, I encourage anyone planning to vote in any election this year to ask the candidates competing for their votes on question: “What is the purpose of government?” And then carefully consider how they answer the question.

I agree with Dr. Ali: I think the purpose of any government is to improve the conditions of people’s lives. I am running for Portland City Council because I want to improve the conditions of our lives here and now. Those conditions should include (at minimum) opportunities for all of us to:

• Earn a decent living wage in a good job;
• Find opportunities for self-expression and entrepreneurship;
• Have a safe, decent, and affordable homes to live in (alone or with the friends or families we chose) and safe neighborhoods; and
• Access to good healthcare and good educational opportunities.

Essentially, governments should provide us the basic conditions we all need to live and thrive as we want — not just survive the banality of some meager day to day existence. Our governments ensure that we can access everything we need to live, then leave it up to us to determine how to thrive.