In many countries, especially those like Sri Lanka which were under British colonial rule, there is a belief that the powers of government are unlimited and so are its duties. This is probably because under the colonial system absolute power belonged to a foreign state, which did not have any responsibilities towards those whom it governed. The idea that the people are above the government, and that the functions of government should be limited to those the people want or need, did not have currency in the colonial era.

This has also been the case in modern times in countries where communist goverments have developed. Communist systems emerged in the twentieth century as the main opponents of Capitalist systems. Communism and capitalism originally referred to economic ideas rather than political systems. Karl Marx, who developed communism as a social and economic theory, had believed that the state would eventually wither away. However, communism developed into a political system that gave absolute power to the government. It was perhaps so because it emerged first in feudal and agricultural societies where absolute systems of authority had prevailed previously.

In the previous chapter we looked at how, as modern societies emerged with greater emphasis on the setting up of government by the people, measures were taken to limit the powers of the executive. Here we should consider the functions of government, that is, what governments alone can do, what they can do in collaboration with other elements in society, and what they should not try to do at all.