That might be the reason you accept&#x2F;support the existence of government, but it is not clear that is <i>why</i> government exists.  Your statement assumes a two things:<p>1) People want &quot;to create a social safety net, and to extract taxes from corporate and personal income revenue to support those services.&quot;<p>2) People are getting what they want, or at least supporting government in the hope they will achieve the previous point (#1).<p>I am not sure what level of support either of these two points garners, but I am certain that it is not 100%, and it may be that less than an outright majority of people support both.<p>A more plausible explanation of why government exists (in my view) is that like any other monopoly, it has used tools including propaganda, suppression of opposing views, and incentivizes for collaboration to build and maintain its strength.