ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with substantive matters of governance. It describes that a possible measure of the power of a state is the tax revenue per capita invested in the state. The chapter distinguishes three levels: those of the norms that regulate the constitutive norms, which in turn attempt to regulate social conduct. It attempts to unveil the mechanisms that make the political system tick. The chapter suggests that society itself, is a system composed of four subsystems: the biological, economic, cultural, and political. It examines the platitude that a good government is one that helps to raise the level of development of its people, as measured by the economic, cultural, and political indicators. The chapter shows that legal positivism is conformist or conservative, hence an obstacle to the legal reforms that should accompany social reforms. The efficient functioning of machines, organisms, and social systems requires control mechanisms. The state is of course the main control mechanism of civilized society.
