No, the problem is the people. All the people. Even if you take away business and money, which isn’t realistic, you still have to deal with the fact that humans are awful to each other, especially when they have power over each other. Government rulers throughout history have been horrible to their subjects just for the love of the game, sometimes they didn’t even get anything out of it. They just wanted others to suffer.
Look at Reddit, or even here on Lemmy, honestly. Is every moderator and admin some magnanimous and benevolent person? No, of course not. Moderators have a bit of a reputation for being horrendously corrupt power trippers, right? Do they get paid to be that way? Sure, some, but even without that they would likely act the same regardless. And I am a moderator here on Lemmy saying this.
There are not enough “nice” people in the world for a human government to ever work the way you suggest. And even if there were, there is no guarantee that they would always be that way. All it takes is one person criticizing people with authority, one person suggesting something those with authority don’t like, etc. No human government ever started from purely bad intentions. But the bad was baked in from before the start, it is unavoidable.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Can that be realistically achieved though? Any representative government is going to be vulnerable to the selection effects of people who want to be in charge ending up in charge, and those of them most willing to do whatever it takes having a competitive advantage. The formation of an elite class colluding at the expense of the rest of us seems like a natural result.