Have you ever stopped to think, as you go on your daily life, how smoothly things fall into place? You drive your car down a certain direction, following the lanes chalked out, stopping at traffic lights and parking at a designated spot? You are required to work only certain hours of the day and the week, and there is a certain minimum payment a person of your position must receive. If someone tries to rob you on the streets, you can turn to the police. If you think, civilized life as you know it is a giant, complex machine, and like any machine, it has operators. In this case, the operators are the government.
Brings order and organization
This, in fact, is the reason why we need to have a government. A country is a huge place, with a staggeringly large and ever-growing population. Each person has to interact with someone else, and thus forms intrinsic parts of the social fabric that holds everyone in their place. In the absence of a government, everyone would be free to behave in any which they felt like, and that would lead to pure mayhem. Can you imagine what it would be like if someone decided to remove all the traffic from the main road and reserve it to drive down for their sole usage? Or if people simply took to shooting down everyone who crossed them in the slightest? The social structure would break at an instant. It is because of the government that we do not see these occurrences.
Provides leadership
The government is important for the leadership it provides to the people. In a country filled with millions of people, or even thousands, it would be impossible to know whom to turn to in times of distress. It is humanly not possible for every person to work in accordance to every other person’s well-being, and someone or the other is bound to get hurt in the process. Every organization needs a leader that it can follow and who can lay down the rules, which brings order to the organization. Without this, the country would be left to fend on its own, without any idea of the rights and wrongs, and the duties and entitlements.
Anarchy is the alternative
The lack of a government is anarchy. If a country does not have a government, that means there is no one to set ant rules and seeing to it that those rules are followed. Crime would abound as there would be no retribution for any criminal activity, and, in fact nothing would be criminalized. Power would pass along to the hands of the rich and the powerful, and there would be no semblance of an even distribution of wealth; leading to rampant abject poverty and pockets of wealth. In the direst of situations, in fact, the country would be heading fast toward a hostile takeover by an imperialist nation on the grounds of being a failed state.
Provides dependability
Perhaps the most important function served by the government is that of dependability. As mentioned earlier, a country is a huge place with thousands of people living in it, at least. A leader or, or a group of leaders, is essential to maintain order in such an organization. But most importantly, a government gives us the scope of going up to someone when we need anything. It allows us the relief of knowing that people we chose are out there working to take care of us and keep the country from harm. From traffic laws to the judicial system, everything is implemented and taken care of by the government.
A good government only
All said and done, however, let us not forget that it is not just any government that will do. The difference made by a government that is good and one that is bad can be easily seen today. Take the many failed states around the world- Syria, Somalia, and even North Korea, to some extent. Whether a government that has surrendered to the mafia that runs amok, or a government intoxicated with power and shattering the country’s spirit- it never does the nation good to have anything but an able, stable, and just leadership that has betterment and progress of the nation as its primary goal.
Humans are by nature obeyers of laws and rules, and we like to think and know that there is someone watching over us and taking care of the really big issues. Even in the most Utopian of dreams about a free and equal country, like in John Lennon’s Imagine, the government is never made to do away. We might choose to overthrow a failing government, but we will never want to be without one; we will attempt to install a substitute and hopefully better governmental body as soon as the autocrats are taken care of.