@theorytoe @newt
When someone good at "optimising costs" starts dumping toxic sludge to a lake near your home, you will need someone to be there to stop it because you simply won't cut it alone — even if you persuade your neighbours to take sawed-off shotguns an join you, the "cost-optimiser" will still have better goons than you and the boys.
Of course the owner of that marvelous enterprise might've also taken over the state itself, but it means that something went terribly wrong awhile ago.
@theorytoe @newt
Neither eliminating the state, nor making it all-powerful will solve this, and of course the "good guys" taking over doesn't solve it either because even the best tend to become the worst autocrats when left unchecked — checks and balances everywhere. Somewhere hanging in the fragile balance the semblance of peaceful and quiet life exists.