It isn't as if we don't have any functioning government. We do, of course, but we just put it in the background. Other countries recognize explicitly that the state has a role. Culturally we pretend it doesn't. Of course those potholes don't fill themselves, and the lawn in that park doesn't cut itself. We wake up twice a year and wonder why the streets haven't been plowed as fast as they should have been.
Some things require taxation and collective action, mostly known as "government." We have been pretending otherwise since Reagan.
