my two cents (adjusted for inflation)
Throughout history there have been three different goals of government. The first governments were tribal leaderships, and their goal was the well being of the tribe. These were survival governments, and the codifying of traditions that maintained the survivability of the tribe included the rudiments of property and territory protection, just like many other animals practice nonverbally. As well, they promoted tribal practices of horticulture and hunting work distribution. Then, with the advent of agriculture, governments began to focus on a slightly different character of law. Early agricultural societies began focusing their law on the preservation of power of the leaders. Property was abstracted to money because it implied a wealth associated to the leaders that they had not previously had: the wealth of power and control. Assuming ownership of the resource gluttony produced in agriculture and the urbanization that accompanied it, the new aristocracy was able to develop a class division that maintained their wealth. Finally, with the brilliance that humans often show, democratic governments were born in a (somewhat subversive) effort to remove the established hegemonies as the basis for government and instead replace it with a popular will basis for law. In many ways, this effort changed the direction that governments were taking as their goal, but it has never (even after various millenia of practice) changed the power structure associated with the non-tribal populations. Urbanized societies still have a distinction between resource ownership and the class that works to maintain the resource ownership structure through labor. Even those political ideologies that wished to remove the power structure (such as communism) only transferred the resource ownership around (often back to the state, as in the aristocracies).
So now, the actions of government are often split in democracies. First, the majority of the people believe it is the goal of government to protect them from the actions of others, and this is a major part of what government does. However, there is still a large effort by the resource "owners" to get governments to protect their positions of power, suitably wrapped in words such as "job providers". Unfortunately, this too has been a major part of what government does.
However, there is an evolutionary trend that has been occuring in society which has made the power structures much more fluid than they were in the past. And as technology progresses, the amount of resources (here defined as the tools necessary to accomplish a job) available to any individual is skyrocketing.
Today, the power structures still exist. Artists mostly must still approach major labels to get their work available to the public. Most individuals cannot start their own companies because of various resource lacks. Even today, it is difficult for all children to get the appropriate education to become power brokers in society (particularly in the US -- not to mention the "undeveloped" areas of the world -- where not only is higher education often too expensive for the poor, but lower education gives less in poor areas, though many European countries have done much work in this effort). However, with the advent of the internet and the increases in affordable computing power, education is easier and easier to obtain.
And this has been the direction technology has always taken. A technological advance is almost defined by its ability to make a particular task easier to accomplish. And it is clear that as technology advances over the next few centuries, lifespans and health will continue to increase, abilities of the individual to accomplish their desires in art and other creative enterprises will grow, and generally individual resources will continue to accumulate.
So in many ways, what Amn and Simon666 are saying amount to the same thing. The emotion of happiness will continue to increase for individuals, because they will have more access to their desires (excepting of course pathological desires). And this is a vital part of what the human experience has been striving for since we first picked up stones. Which is also explained by another facte of the human experience -- obsession. Humans are the most obsessive creatures on this planet. Our babies stare at objects much longer than any other animal. We have developed language and art and technology. Productivity is the consequence of our obsession which has justified itself evolutionarily. They are pretty much two sides of the same coin, our desires are chosen by our obsessions these days far greater than they are by biological signals (like hunger).
I just think that we need to separate what the goals of government may be (I think they don't have one, they are merely the result of a battle of goals) from the actual direction we are moving because or in spite of government. I think we are naturally moving to a happier society, and I think our obsessiveness will maintain our productivity to accomplishing new desires as they become possible.
Of course, all that I just said depends on whether or not we blow ourselves up or in some other way refuse to enter adulthood and destroy our world in the meanwhile...
