The suggested role for government is as follows: To provide methods by which the energies of the many millions of individuals as well as various private and public organisations could be harnessed to make possible human advancement and development. The government has a duty to defend the nation from external attack, preserve law and order, establish a degree of regulation essential for interaction between people and institutions, and provide welfare for the genuinely poor, the under-privileged and the disabled.
Milton Friedman has this to say about the role of government in Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago (1962):
"There is no formula that can tell us where to stop. We must rely on our fallible judgment and, having reached a judgment, on our ability to persuade our fellow men that it is a correct judgment, or their ability to persuade us to modify our views. We must put our faith, here as elsewhere, in a consensus reached by imperfect and biased men through free discussion and trial and error ...
A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework, engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighbourhood effects widely regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child — such a government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent liberal is not an anarchist.
Yet it is also true that such a government would have clearly limited functions and would refrain from a host of activities that are now undertaken by federal and state governments in the United States, and their counterparts in other Western countries."
What is the basis on which regulation, which is deemed to be essential may be determined? What should governments do and what should governments not do? What are the limits on and what is the role of government? These questions cannot be conclusively answered by reference to theories or concepts so dear to the mind of regulators and philosophers. There are many different perspectives and factors which provide assistance in the search for the nature and content of the permissible restrictions and freedoms, such as:
A brief explanation of (1) to (3) follows; (4) to (6) are analysed in sections 16 to 18 and 4.