What is a perfect government? I know that such a thing will happen when Christ comes again, but listening to General Conference this weekend brought up this question. Describe to me what a perfect government is, like who would be in charge, what would they be in charge for, how would the balance of power be sustained, how would everyone live, how about welfare, education, or poverty?

And this would also help with a story that I'm working on.

A perfect government, to me, is like a window washer. If you don't notice how dirty a window is, they're doing their job properly.

No, in all serious, a perfect government is one that continually grows and learns from mistakes. A perfect government is when the people take interest in the government, not because they have to for whatever reason, but because they care about the current issues and know that they can do something to change their world. A perfect government is one that has a person that is like everybody else. Where he goes under training to be a leader, and does what is best for the people. Not what is best for his own personal interests. Everybody would live by doing their part for their community. Where they are educated in general education, and about adult stuff like taxes and paying for a home. The welfare would be stable, and if we ever had any trouble, another government would help that country out and we could pay that country back sometime in the future. If there were poverty, then the community would pitch in and get those stuck in poverty back not their feet. We would make sure that person is happy and healthy, and then continue being his friend.

This is, potentially, a very loaded question. I second 5152077, particularly on that analogy. I like to think back to how many times some variation of the phrase "and there were no poor among them" shows up in the scriptures when talking about civilizations that were truly prospering.

From more of a storytelling standpoint, it really depends on what your characters think 'perfect' is. For some it might be a highly regulated system where they live worry-(and thought)-free in exchange for hefty taxes and few real freedoms. For others it might be a system where they don't have to give anything and in turn don't expect anything. I'd worry less about defining the intricacies of what makes their government good or bad in a vacuum, and more about what makes it good or bad for your characters; ideally they'll fill in the details for you.