Two steps back (lack of affordable clean water and lack of affordable sewage), hopefully the one step forward is going to be lack of government.
The leading problem in the western world is that the free market doesn't extend to government. I want to choose my politicians based on lowest expense and highest reward, because the electoral system seems to keep giving me the highest expense and the lowest rewards.
I get the politicians I am willing to pay for.
Unfortunately corporations have more money, and can afford to pay more than I can.
That is the free market at work.
But why is this true? Why does the politician with the most money almost always win?
Personally I find this a failing in the electorate, not the system. The fact that more votes are almost a guarantee with more advertising dollars spent tells me that the electorate isn't doing their job, they are just voting for whomever they see more.
From the article:
"Six of Jefferson County's former commissioners have been found guilty of corruption for accepting the bribes, along with 15 other officials."
This shows an obvious pattern, but to me that doesn't mean "the government is broken" it means "the electorate is either not paying attention or gullible".
The electoral system is something with rules and processes that can be changed to try to reach an outcome that produces less corruption.
Trying to coheres the electorate into making the 'correct' choice is to say that Democracy has failed, your population is 'dumb' and now a minority has to manipulate the system to get a reasonable result. This all assumes that such manipulation is in good faith, poor assumption.
I believe that any political (and judicial) system that delegates authority ultimately has to have an element of good faith from the people that receive that authority. It is unfortunate that it has to be that way, but I don't know what alternative is available.
In light of that I think that saying that the need to trust someone else is a "poor assumption" and thus negates any options for change may work as a rhetorical device to win an argument but it does not offer any way to make any progress. That makes such a position not very useful.