Indeed the government is the price we pay for basic civil rights as a group! Roads, water, electricity, transport, health care etc in the ideal situation we pay a reasonable amount of tax for these services to be maintained they provide a platform for capitalism to thrive allowing barriers to be removed but also keeping them in check and avoiding like you mentioned oligarchy! We’ve yet to find a balance between the two because either one tries to dominate the other or the power of the one corrupts the other! Hopefully we eventually find a give and take balance that works for us
I do think though that systems like these will never work on large scales with millions and billions of people and that cities should have more autonomy to pick a system that works for its in habitants since they closer to the ground and know what will benefit people, creating sort of micro economies and governments with a bit of oversite on the federal level! This would help balance the spread and power of one system over the other as people who prefer one system could remain while others move creating a natural flow in and out of each system
This is why I enjoy steemit we can talk freely and discuss topics that on other mediums would be ignored or would turn into a screaming match!
I obviously do not know the answer, and consider myself lucky just to know some of the questions. I do believe that capitalism has a sort of 'self leveling' device built into it that will tend, over time, to moderate itself. For instance, right now, in the US I think that Capital has the upper hand over labor. I'm guessing (or maybe hoping) that will level out and labor will once again become 1/3 of the equation.
Thank you for the comments and the opportunity to trade opinions and ideas. I'm pretty fond of Steemit myself :)