Governing is a Primal Need

Irrespective of cultural or personal views, certain duties, known as governance duties, emerge when societies form. These duties are:

• to protect people against internal or external threats, coercion and major disasters:
  

• social: fraud, violence, invasion
• natural: earthquakes, epidemics

• to enable other communal needs to be met where individuals, acting alone or in private association with others, are judged to be unworkable or unsatisfactory:
  

• protecting common goods from despoliation («tragedy of the commons»)
• providing utilities like a judicial system.

Because all societies need governing, they must set up specific bodies responsible for governing and supporting related processes.

These institutions must align with the culture of the society and with the talents and skills of individuals who are likely to fill the various roles.

Government as an institution is inherently:

• continuous i.e. the need for governance is permanent
• depersonalised i.e. it exists as a function of society not a person
• differentiated i.e. no single politician or official can possibly know or meet all citizens or grasp all that goes on in a society.

In meeting needs (Axiom #1) and creating institutions (Axiom #2), the rationale of any government should be to serve the people—not the other way around.

Members of societies may expect governing duties (Axiom #1) to be minimal, to have a moderate involvement in civic life, or expect them to be pervasive and controlling. That is a «political choice».

«Serving the people» means pursuing what is right and good for them—which is a matter of judgement, ultimately by the people themselves.