As we have illustrated, the anticipation of profit is the primary motivator driving investment.  Without investment there will be no production.  Without production, there can be no consumption.

It should be clear from this examination that in order to encourage increased economic production, which will result in an increased standard of living both for ourselves and for our fellow human beings, we must take no action that will discourage investment.

Since investment is made on the basis of anticipated return, if the potential of return is lessened, so will be the motivation to invest.

One of the costs of doing business however – specifically the cost of government (non-productive, involuntary costs) – has the almost universal effect of diminishing potential returns, and thus decreasing the motivation and incentive to invest.

This diminishment of return as the result of government may be direct, as from taxation which removes money from the enterprise without giving anything of productive value in return, or it may be from administrative regulations and requirements to document compliance, which not only slow down and inhibit efficient production, but impose additional costs.

Government is by its nature a fundamentally un-productive enterprise.

While some functions of government can be argued to provide an environment in which the individual is secure to engage in productive activities without concern for needing to defend those activities from  destruction or theft, such functions could also be provided for by the operators of the enterprise.