ABSTRACT
A theocracy is a government run by priests or clergy, such as Iran under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The critical role of the central government in allocating wealth and setting production quotas makes this scheme particularly vulnerable to corruption. A democracy is governed by the people or their elected representatives. Advocates of a laissez-faire or free-market approach have long trumpeted the virtues of a market unfettered by government intervention. In the words of the third US President, Thomas Jefferson, “That government is best that governs least.” The role of government progressed similarly in other industrialized nations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For example, Britain passed the Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act in 1853, the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act in 1876, the Protection of Birds Act in 1954, and the Clean Air Act in 1956. The US government privatized much of the land west of the Mississippi River with the Homestead Act of 1862.
