Actually, my definition of government is the public institutions we set up in order to protect us from the abuses of private enterprise. Private enterprise is the institution we set up to ensure that we are not completely helpless and dependent on government for everything. There is no guarantee, of course, that either of these institutions will necessarily be benign all the time.

Government claims to be fair because it can always be moderated by democratic principles, such as law, constitutions and the vote. Private enterprise claims to be fair because it is susceptible to being forced out of business by a free market if they're not. There is a certain amount of truth to this, but it is not a sure thing. Governments and businesses are usually dominated by personalities who are highly skilled at subverting these mitigating processes. In fact, that is the very definition of "businessman" or "politician". As far as I'm concerned, they are psychologically indistinguishable, and they both are related to lawyers. Haven't you noticed how they even dress and talk alike?

This is why I tend to favor a system of governance where the state and private enterprise are in tension, and even in some form of power competition with each other. The last thing we want is a system where the private and public sector work together. They must remain in conflict so they won't gang up on the rest of us. I think this tension is what we have in this country right now, what we've always had, really, and I think it works pretty well. Not perfectly, mind you, and it does have a tendency to oscillate about some golden mean which is difficult to define and always in dispute. But in general, I think America has got it right, and furthermore, it's been getting better.