Purpose

It would be a lot easier to evaluate whether state action was appropriate or effective if the state had a known purpose. If you assume that the state's actions are efficient and appropriate and then work back to the purpose, then you get a hodgepodge. Under that analysis, the purpose of the state appears to be (a) to perpetuate its own existence; (b) to provide employment for bureaucrats; (c) to maintain the existing power structure; and (d) a million other seemingly unrelated and conflicting purposes.

In my opinion, the state should devote itself to the overarching human project of taking control of all matter and energy in the entire universe and turning it to the benefit of mankind. Citizens should demand notning less than individual immortality, total leisure, and unlimited resources at their disposal. A primary sub-goal on the way to achieving these aims should be to get us off this planet before we destroy it or some cataclysm befalls it. Anything that doesn't promote the primary goal is a waste of time and energy and resources.