Pakistan, Aug. 21 -- Ask a Pakistani businessman what the state does for him, and he will describe a stack of approvals, notices and inspections. Ask an ordinary citizen the same question, and he will point to a broken drain, an overcrowded ward, or a police station he avoids on principle.

Both are describing the same government.

This is the contradiction we must confront directly: Pakistan has too much government where citizens can manage themselves, and far too little where only the state can act. Until policymakers accept this framing, every reform will misfire - either by shrinking functions the state must perform, or by adding weight to functions it should never have touched.

For too long, our policy discourse has been trapped bet...