Failed States, Genocidal Governments, Boko Haram, And Bashar Assad

Yet the government’s production of goods and services is not limited to goods and services for which there are at least some plausible economic grounds for a government role. Governments around the world produce a bewildering variety of goods and services, many, if not most, of which leave us scratching our heads and wondering why the government, rather than the private sector, is producing them. As pointed out earlier, the case for government intervention is greatest for pure public goods such as national defense or police forces. Even here the government sometimes fails miserably — notice the initial failure of the Iraqi armed forces to protect its own citizens from the advent of the jihadist group IS (Islamic State) which took over large swathes of Iraq, including the second largest city of Mosul, before they recovered to defeat IS and reassert control over lost territory. Perhaps the best definition of a failed state is a state that fails to provide even the most basic services, such as a minimum level of protection from violence…