Questions that bother me?

Since the day I was at law school, the following questions have been bothering me.

Can we survive as a nation without:

1. Oil?

2. Gas?

3. Subsidies?

4. Personal income tax?

I once posed this question to my university law professor who was an expert on constitutional and administrative law on the most effective solution for a government to increase governance and reduce the risks of abuse of power by public servants.  He gave me a crudely simple answer but I thought it did and even until now makes some sense, reduce the size of the public sector and their powers, privatise their services and let the private sector deliver public services.  It does make sense. The less power that a person has, the less opportunity for him to abuse it.  The less services that public officer needs to deliver, the less opportunity for him to "rent out" his authority for his personal gain.  That is why to me, corporatization  and subsequently privatisation of public services do make sense.