RE: How to Easily Answer Extreme Hypotheticals
Human nature is changing.
Govern-cement is currently a Kakistocracy. (rule by the worst / most evil)
As people "grow up" and stop needing govern-cement to be big daddy / big mommy, then govern-cement can morph into what it should be a protectorate.
As govern-cement becomes more transparent, it will actually start to do what it is stated to do. (or it will just stop existing)
Humans actually like things in one place.
Humans are group creatures.
Only about 1/4 of the people are fit for being anarchists. The rest are truly sheep and need the group.
So, what will come about is something, probably a protectorate, where it does what a govern-cement says it did.
And the system has real feedback loops.
Such as on your 1040, along with your donation, you fill at a list of which agencies get the money. If an agency doesn't get enough money it is instantly shut down. Or a form where you vote for which agencies should remain, be shut down, or shut down and reopened.
That all sounds like you're saying: if people are ideally educated/informed/fit, then good government will follow. But that's what communism has been saying for decades, in a way. In fact, any system will work if people are educated/fit.
That's why a system whose success depends on ideal citizens is probably a bad system. And it's also why a good system will always prioritize education, by any means necessary: because that's the thing that will most likely guarantee its continued existence - because even if there are better systems out there, change requires effort, so citizens, like Nature, will prefer to tinker rather than redesign from scratch. So a less-than-perfect system that prioritizes education will tend to remain in force. Radical change happens usually when things get really shitty. (Hence the anarchists who wanted Trump because they think doomsday will ensue while he's in office.)
The difference between then and now:
People are becoming... more wise for lack of a better term.
Transparency is becoming the thing. Basically, if you run campaigns like they used to, you will be slaughtered in the polls. Open, honest, with flaws shown, that will be what gets votes in the future.
Only if something is measured can it be improved. This is an axiom in business. It is will be forced into govern-cement. And thus, a beneficial loop is formed. Instead of the destructive loop we have now.
I expect a generation before we actually see any real signs of change. But it is coming.
I'm a meliorist so 👍