I've taken more then a few terms of political science and I can tell you that most first world countries are social democracies. What is a social democracy? It is a country with a public and private sector that has government regulating them.
The second most powerful nation earth is China, Germany, France, Japan, Britain,etc. What do all these successful nations have in common? They have government regulations and a public sector. Dispute it loons.
Small government hasn't done shit for anyone...Somalia has a small government, Haiti has a small government and we see how they're.