A quote from Herbert Spencer

Thanks to the Mises Institute:

Herbert Spencer Day
Gary Galles

To the question--What is representative government good for? Our reply is: It is good, especially good, good above all the others, for doing the thing which a government should do. It is bad, especially bad, bad above all others, for doing the things which a government should not do.
...
What are those things?

The bad:

Countless facts prove the Government to be the worst owner, the worst manufacturer, the worst trader: in fact, the worst manager, be the thing managed what it may. But though the evidence of this is abundant and conclusive...Legislators, thinking themselves practical, cling to the implausible theory of an officially-regulated society in spite of overwhelming evidence that official regulation perpetually fails.

And the upside:

Moreover, the complexity, incongruity of parts, and general cumbrousness which deprive a representative government of that activity and decision required for paternally-superintending the affairs of...millions of citizens; do not deprive it of the ability to establish and maintain the regulations by which these citizens are prevented from trespassing against one another...the objections which so strongly tell against it in all its other relations to society do not tell against it in this fundamental relation.

It's one of those articles you should read in full. And Gary Galles links this article from Spencer: Representative Government—What is it Good For? (1857) archived by my friends at The Library of Economics and Liberty.