Economic question

We can identify four views of the proper role of government in a market economy.

1. Libertarian view. The government should establish law and order to protect private property rights and to enforce contracts. The government needs to collect taxes to fund judges and courts, the police, and the military to defend against foreign enemies. In all other matters, the government should let the free market work.

2. Conservative view. The government needs to provide physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports, and water supply. It also should impose taxes or regulations on pollution and it should have an anti-trust agency to regulate or break up monopolies. There may be other tasks for the government to perform, but the government should be limited so that taxes may be kept low.

3. Liberal view. In addition to the tasks that the Conservative View supports, the government should do more to improve income distribution and to correct some of the human failures in decision-making (nanny state). We need a social security system that collects taxes from the working population and provides retirement pensions and disability insurance for everyone. Tax revenues should be used to support free education up through high school at least and to make health care available (possibly with some co-payments) to all.

4. Welfare State view. The government should go beyond the tasks listed under the Liberal view. There should be free health care for all and free, high-quality pre-school and child care, and perhaps free university education at public universities. Note that the Welfare State is compatible with a private enterprise economy for most goods and services.

The ratio of taxes/GDP (or Govt spending/GDP) associated with each view might be as follows:

Libertarian (5%) Conservative (15%) Liberal (30%) Welfare State (45%)

Which view most closely represents your view of government?