I disagree. We've had 40+ years where that's been the central thesis of both Democrats and Republicans in the US and where has that led us?

Some industries and functions are most efficiently ran by a single government body. Competing in those sorts of constrained markets only tends to create single monopolistic companies. That's because it's either too expensive for a competitor to enter, or other factors force competitors out.

For example, we aren't going to see new private jail companies.

But even in places where there is stiff competition, the incentives of the business owners is not to make the lives of their employees or the services good. It's to make them profitable. A good example of this is senior care facilities. Often understaffed, overcrowded, and overpriced. Another is what's happening with real estate right now. Rent prices have shot up everywhere not because of a lack of competition, but because of collusion of the landlords through pricing systems like yeildstar.

An important role of government is to step in and solve for these injustices. Something or government has completely shirked because of dumb quips like Regan's "the scariest phrase is 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" or Clinton's "The era a big government is over".

This is why I don’t complain much about airlines (except their mergers)