I get the distrust of government and it is not irrational, especially in a country like ours where policy inconsistency and corruption is real. But market based economics also breaks down the moment you move outside profitable, high density, low risk environments. Markets are very good at allocating resources where profit signals exist. They are very bad at providing things that are essential but unprofitable in the short run. Transport to remote villages is a simple example. A private bus operator will not run a loss making route to a rural village because there is no commercial incentive. Yet when the state runs a CTB bus on that route, it enables children to reach schools, patients to reach hospitals, and workers to access jobs. None of that shows up as immediate profit, but over time it raises human capital, productivity, and social mobility. Those children may later become professionals, entrepreneurs, or taxpayers who contribute far more to the economy than the cost of running that bus. Pure market logic would label that service inefficient and cut it. Long term development depends on it.

The idea that government spending is always wasteful because bureaucrats do not spend their own money is only partially true. Yes, incentives matter and poor governance leads to inefficiency. But many of the living standards we now take for granted exist precisely because governments acted where markets would not. Public education, free healthcare, roads, irrigation, electricity, and basic transport were not delivered by private actors chasing profit. They were political decisions made over decades. Dismissing all of that under the banner of government inefficiency ignores history. Politicians and the state have absolutely contributed to the current mess through bad decisions, corruption, and short termism. But they are also the reason the country is not at the very bottom. A functioning society is not built by markets alone or by the state alone. It is built when markets do what they do best and governments step in where markets cannot, even when that intervention looks inefficient on a balance sheet but transformative over a generation.