Quora Answer: Do You Think It is the Role of Government to Enact Good Public Policy?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Do you think the role of the government is to enact good public policy?  If not, what is its role in your mind?” 

The role of government is to create stability, to protect citizens from conflict, and provide services to citizens for the purposes of that stability.  Public policy would refer to the system of laws and regulatory measures, and the attendant courses of actions derived from it created and promulgated by that government and its representatives.  The purpose of public policy is to advance the agenda of government.  Whether public policy is “good”, is entirely subjective, and depends on how it impacts the self-interest of interest groups.  Policy that is considered “good” by one group may not be considered so by another due to competing self-interest. 

It is in the interest of government to perpetuate itself.  As such, it requires the support of many different interest groups, across socioeconomic classes and demographics.  This is regardless of structure, whether democratic or despotic.  Influential groups whose interests are not served would perpetrate conflict, whether it is civil disobedience, all the way to armed conflict and regime change.  As such, a government that wants to endure would enact “good” public policies, in the sense that these policies serve the interests of the majority of interest groups, or is articulated to be such, and they believe it.  It is not the role of government to formulate “good” public policy.  It is self-interest.