What are the incentives for government to serve the greater good of the country, specifically, why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone. As the old joke goes, "democracy is the belief that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it, good and hard". But nobody in the world really lives in a democracy, it's even worse! There's indirection. To believe that governments are qualified to serve the "greater good" is to believe that people are qualified to select people who are good at judging the greater good. And that's not even counting the next layer of indirection. You're really hoping people are qualified to select people (politicians) that select people (unelected bureaucrats) that know what the greater good is.
There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
There is a wide window of human activity between a selfish money grubbing capitalist firm, and the government.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, >promote the general Welfare<, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
> why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone
The government is uniquely qualified to be the actor of last or only resort in a number of situations.
> There are many, many cases, when private enterprise (often, but not exclusively, for-profits operating in a nonprofit/goodwill capacity) has been the most effective responder in national emergencies, for example Walmart immediately providing tons of supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Indeed we all remember when Walmart's convoy of soldiers arrived at the Superdome to finally open a supply line to the thousands that sheltered there. Or when Walmart's sailors airlifted or floated out 33,000 citizens stranded in floodwaters.
Man! If every organization held true to its founding ideals. do no evil, or heck, March of Dimes. You know, that document you cite also has a list of ten amendments, of which I know zero have been held to over 200 years. That's right, even the US has violated the 3rd amendment by quartering soldiers in warzones, for example Afghanistan, and even WWII (the amendment does not specify homes of citizens).
Do you think the US follows this clause of the constitution? Did you even know it was there? "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
Forgive me if your assertion that the least binding part of a legal document that has brooked all sorts of breaches to its principles holds very little confidence.
> why should government be uniquely qualified to decide what is good for everyone. > The government is uniquely qualified to be the actor of last or only resort in a number of situations.
You're begging the question.
I'm not religious, but the hebrew bible has a really fascinating parable (1 samuel 16) about the israelites wanting "a king" (and importantly, describing there motivations for such) and god begrudgingly granting their wish with a warning for what was to come.
Governments serving their people is a very modern and very imperfect concept. I would argue we're not there yet.
> The US produces lot of corn which is used to make ethanol > Ethanol is already produced in large quantities in the US because it's used as a biofuel
Isn't it kind of the other way round? Ethanol is produced from corn in large quantities because of government support requiring that more ethanol be used than the market would independently want, because of the political power of the subset of the US that grows a lot of corn.
I.e. oversupply of corn -> regulation to create artificially large market demand for corn+derived biofuel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_S...
A good place to start would be enforcing the FARA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_...
* Governments and only governments can and should prepare for national emergencies, because saying Hospitals don't have enough PPE for pandemics is like saying your local farm doesn't have enough stockpile of rice to server the public during a famine/war. Private institutions have no incentives to serve the greater good of the country.
* Manufacturing is an industry every nation should invest in. If labor is expensive, the government should subsidize it so that the essential skills to manufacture and the infrastructure to do so remains functional even though market forces tells consumers otherwise. "Made in Switzerland" marketing can only do so much when the T-shirt costs CHF 120 vs. CHF 11.99 on Amazon which is probably made in Bangladesh. I am not saying govt should subsidize T-shirt manf, just trying to make a point.
* Dismantle short-term capitalism that exists in the stock market. Public companies should disclose their financials on a yearly basis or even every other year. Capitalism needs to be refactored to orient itself for long-term gains. Also making it illegal to not act in the interest of share holders is an insane law - CEOs should have the ability to put moral, environmental and other concerns in front of their priority list and not just creating value for the shareholders. This whole system is messed up.
* Executives sold off their country's soul to China, made a bank, cut corners, fucked consumers and went to the bank laughing. They paid off senators and govt officials, created a greater divide in the income distribution around the world. Limit executive pay for public and private firms.
* Reliance on China needs to change, diversify manufacturing supply chain. Just making sanitizer in US doesn't help if 90% of the ingredients are shipped from China.