Why do we have government?

Do we actually need government? Is it possible to live without laws or rulers? Because man needs a moral limits, government is absolutely necessary.

A government is a body that has the power to make and enforce laws within an organization or group. In the broadest sense, “to govern” means to manage or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set of people, or a collection of assets. A God-ordained government acts like a restraint on man’s selfishness and regulates his societal interactions when necessary. The primary duty of a government is to reward the people who do good things and punish the wrongdoers.

There are a wide range of theories about the reasons for establishing governments. There are four major reasons for establishing a government: greed and oppression, order and tradition, natural rights, and social contract.

Many political viewpoints that are opposed to the existence of a government (such as Anarchism), as well as others, give emphasis to the historical roots of governments – the fact that governments originated from authority who took, by force, certain regions of land as their own. Once they took that land they began to exercise authority over the people of that land. It is argued that governments exist to enforce the will of the strong and dominate the weak.


Various types of conservatism generally see the government as a positive power that conveys order out of chaos, establishes laws to end “the war against all”, punishes vice while encouraging moral virtue, and respects tradition. At times, in this view, the government is seen as something ordained by a higher power, such as a king, which human beings have a duty to obey.