How extensive is the role of national Governemnt.
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In "democracy at gunpoint" 038-democracy-by-force, the danger of
under-rule and over-rule of National Government where noted.
Under-rule being a national Government which is absent from its
duty to such a degree that the nation can start to deteriorate
from lack of maintenance. In theory if all works well a top
Government is barely needed because a Government is a mechanism
to change the system. If the system is working nicely there is
no need for change, particularly if crime is low and friendly
cooperation between other actors is sufficient. The absence
of a more hands-on Government is more of a problem then the
collapse of a Government which has made rules to Govern the
finances and so on. Example: a nation whose Government each year
decides on budgets for varies essential parts of society and
is making essential decisions as problems or conditions for them
arise can less well be missed then a Government who is always
setting long term rules, only adjusting them where needed.

Example: A nation with a hands-on Government looks at the taxation
revenue, and decides to spend 15% on infrastructure, 8% on medicine,
15% on Judicial and police, etc etc. Then the next year, when all
bridges have been repaired for instance, they will allocate only
5% to infrastructure, and 16% on medicine to cover for a lack of
funding the previous year. If they taxed at 20% one year, perhaps
next year they will tax at 15% because there is money in excess
(these numbers are uninformed fantasy). When such a Government is
suddenly absent, the system becomes unstable: what are the budgets for
next year, what parts are being maintained, what parts are defunded
because they have too much money and have been well maintained, etc.
Such a nation could spin out of control after some years on strange
budget policies.

         Another nation has a Government which likes to set long
term rules. They compute that infrastructure on average needs 7%
of the budget long term, medicine needs 12%, taxation should be
17.5%, inflation 0.0000%, Government lending 0.0000% etc etc etc.

If you whack a driving vehicle off its course violently, it needs
to be brought back on the track. However it will tend to hit the
road at such an angle as to be in danger of getting off on the other
end. This can produce a violently shacking car, always in a state
of emergency, where in fact the road could be perfectly clear and
the weather beautifull.

I suppose that the best type of Government is the long term rule-making
Government. Not only is that simply an easier way to Govern, using an
emergency fund on N% to cover unforeseen circumstances, the time passing
between one decision and the next is long, affording the people and
researchers to deliberate long about the next small correction. This
is more likely to yield an optimally run society. Besides the emergency
fund one could also install a general special projects fund (these
funds are of course imaginary, but if you add them to calculations
of total money supply and install policy for 0.0000% inflation, the
size of the funds is represented in a slight increase of the value
of money, which can then be expended without causing any inflation).
The general special projects fund could be a toy of politics, like
the space between the lines on a road is a toy for the straight
driving car. The size of the project fund will determine the total
short term wobble of the Government finances. By limiting its size
it will be prevented that Government finances start to go violently
up and down on whim, while not completely tying down the freedom of
Government to do something different. If the fund isn't used, it should
naturally be drained to prevent deflation, which can be accomplished
by lowering taxes.

*

The national Government has to try to find a certain balance between
ruling the nation and letting the rest of the nation do as it pleases.
Some people may automatically assume that rule should be as strong as
it can be (totalitarianism), other may think that the rule should be
all but absent (anarchism). The best way to solve this is not to assume
as national Government it should necessarily be totalitarianism or
anarchism, but listen to what the people want. The people no doubt not
only have ideas about what should be done by Government, but also on how
strong it should impose itself exactly. Some people may want taxation
to increase (for instance to repair infrastructure), but that does not
mean they would agree to a taxation increase in that means the Government
install army checkpoints that throw people to the ground to empty their
pockets of any valuables. 

I'd say: the National Government should not assume too much of the
responsibility for the nation and its integrity, and neither too little.
The National Government is not responsible for everything that happens,
while at the same time they are the most powerful system and therefore
the most responsible for what happens. Most responsible does not in
general have to mean total responsibility. I'd say that national
Government is also more responsible for people who need it more
(sick, injured, victims of catastrophe), then people who need it less
(highly competent healthy people, rich people, happy people, etc). By
focussing more on where things are worst, work is done on where it
can yield greatest difference. Total responsibility can lead to the
need for totalitarianism to make sure it goes right. It will ensure
there is a grain harvest if you force people at gunpoint to work the
fields, you can then be absolutely certain you have taken care of
the need to provide food, thus having taken total responsibility. At
the same time this is totalitarianism, and it is typically not a nice
way to live. To allow plundering gangs to devastate farming
infrastructure, to not maintain pollution levels low enough, allowing
a corrupt bureaucracy preventing self-defense and nation build-up 
by the public, it could become hard for farmers to make any food
even if they wanted to. That is taking no responsibility whatsoever,
undercutting the ability of society to take care of itself.

Somewhere between these two should be a solution: people know themselves
they need food and/or money to buy it. People will work for that out
of themselves, and if they do too little the hunger will tell them that.
Always useful to notice when a process is self-correcting, thus requiring
less Government attention to steer what long terms steers itself. By
generating conditions in which the society can take care of itself and
the good and the just are put ahead of the criminal and the evil,
Government is probably working at a high efficiency. It is then not
ensured there will be food, maybe there will be none whatsoever. If
it threatens there is none whatsoever, the Government can jump into
totalitarianism, or simply start an information campaign to warn the
public of the expected problem. The back and forth communications is
likely to yield non-totalitarian answers.

*

Some people would characterize a Government as being the leader of
a wandering tribe, always in imminent danger of being wiped out.
The nature of war fighting can be making strategic decisions that can
impact the nation for many decades to come in a few days, and push
them through with totalitarian fever "may the casualties be not as
bad as we expect, and worth the trouble." 

I think the role of Government in my system is more like that of a tree
farmer or someone maintaining a wilderness reserve. Things generally
go very well and it is all mostly fine, just a little maintenance of
the gigantic ship that is the nation here, a little paint-up there,
replacement of a rope that's warn a bit here, a new lightbulb there,
etc. Like a maintenance job rather then a war fighting job. The nature
of maintenance is calm debates and research into what's needed, and
then a replacement or building effort that has been well thought through,
perhaps many years in the planning.

*

The nature of strategic planning in our present day society (2009 / 5769)
is strange. The strategies are being made by dubious characters at the
back end of political parties who are saturated with carreer puppets
of questionable qualities. Then there is the finance power, who has a large
internationally connected network of think-tanks, universities prostituting
themselves to the obvious goals the establishment echoes through its
media (like "build the EU" and so on). Unfortunately most if not all of
the planning and making decisions is coming from a type of war-fighting
mentality, a war against the people themselves no less, by people with
an inescapable and vested interest in seeing wage disparity increase
and horrible dictatorial conditions descend world wide, because that is
more profitable ! 

I guess this is a different condition then you have with the small
embattled tribe, whose leadership is necessarily on the side of the
people because without these people the leadership is also dead. In
the tribal situation, particularly if the tribe is small, the people
have far reaching social control over their leaders. What we have is
also different from how I'd like to change it outlined above.  Where I
would like well researched and thought about maintenance decisions and
fine tuning of a well working system - and not to forget enjoy living
in it (!) - what we currently seem to have is a sort of adverserial
mix of both. There is the long term strategy and attention to detail
that fits a maintenance job. However the long term strategies are
made by groups who effectively (though they may not even realize it
but rather imagine themselves being part of a war against barbarism if
they are too low in the pecking order) are in it for themselves and at
war against the peoples they see as to defeat (to defeat its war for
social justice and democracy and against corruption) and to exploit.

The principle source of this apparently crafted long term war strategy 
against the people is most likely grown out and therefore still related
to for profit business finance.

To get to a peaceful maintenance type, non-totalitarian but neither
non-responsible Government, that enemy must be removed and its roots
(laws allowing for profit business finance) be torn out, the soil into
which it grows (free trade, free enterprise) be covered in a healthy
growth of non-profit business finance, and animals be let loose that
eat away at the enemy its young shoots (laws against business ownership
title trade, against natural resource speculation, against the existence
of international businesses, etc etc).

It may seem impossible to turn a field overgrown with weeds and thorns
into a stable and productive field for edible crops. But by doing the
right things it can all be turned around as if it had never been any
other way.

------------------------

Note how I think I'm getting close to the point where this starts to
become micro-management. Note that the above are not Constitutional
Laws: if the people want totalitarianism then they could be provided
with it. Maybe the above would help to reduce the danger of 
totalitarianism from taking too much responsibility, or from varying
the state finances wildly producing instability that could become
a reason to compensate with totalitarianism.