> But governments are basically the only party that can act with the well being of citizens, as opposed to shareholders, in mind.

Founders that hasn't gone public yet and sold out are the only ones. The government has already sold out to shareholders, at least in USA.

And no its not just "hire good people", its not just "raise wages". What happens if you raise wages is that the useless people get more money, since the ones who decide who to hire are still bad at hiring, so them raising wages without hiring better people is also a form of corruption.

In the end you need to do a deep cleanse to fix it, there are no easy fixes. Root out all plants from all interest groups, everyone that has been bribed via lobbyism money etc, in the entire government...