Why government should tax less and work more

One of the key challenges before companies is to figure out what business they are really in. Once this is clear, everything else -- strategy, etc -- follows. If you know what you want to be, you know what to do.

Xerox Corp thought it was in the business of selling copiers. You had to hardsell the product, and convince the customer why he should invest money in expensive machines. But when the management probed a little deeper, it found that the customer's real need was making copies; owning a copier was incidental to the process. The change in the company's self-definition yielded significant benefits to both the company and its customers.

Governments, like companies, need to be clear about what business they are in. They do lots of things they shouldn't be doing, and don't do the things they should be. Most governments define their jobs as defending the country from external aggression, maintaining internal law and order, promoting economic and social development and ensuring a fair distribution of the fruits of growth.

But look closer: are these responsibilities that need to be done within government or should government merely be ensuring that someone does the job? When governments try to do too much, the net result is bureaucracy, waste, corruption and lack of accountability.

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