[stouset]

"What they should or shouldn't want" is already deeply influenced by housing policy. Cheap suburban homes which don't fully pay for their externalities are one result of this housing policy, and children grow up accustomed to this bizarro-world reality where increasingly tank-sized cars (this is—astonishingly—not even hyperbole) are the only practical means by which one can go from Point A to Point B.

Meanwhile people in Europe live in denser areas with smaller, more fuel-efficient cars or where they can do most of their commuting by foot, bike, or rail. That is the norm for people from those cultures, and so they—like us—largely choose to continue living in a world similar to that in which they grew up.

Given that one of these modes of living reliably produces a happier population and is significantly more environmentally and economically sustainable, that we're already in the business of promoting one style over another via housing policy, and that one of the core purposes of cooperative government is to find ways to promote outcomes that benefit everyone despite going against individuals' self-interest… what on earth is the problem?

[cwalv]

> Given that one of these modes of living reliably produces a happier population

Is that really a "given"?

> Given that ... one of the core purposes of cooperative government is to find ways to promote outcomes that benefit everyone despite going against individuals' self-interest

As I see it, government promotes outcomes that benefit "everyone" only by protecting individuals' self-interest.

[stouset]

Everyone already actively works at protecting their own self interest. We don’t need help promoting good societal outcomes when those are a natural result of people looking out for themselves. Government exists for us to collectively agree that there exist goals that require us to set aside self-interest for the better of everyone.

It’s in my self-interest to take everything you own and to dump my waste in the nearest available yard that isn’t mine. Nobody wants to live in a world where people act like that, so we collectively agree that things are better off for everyone if we respect one another’s property rights and pay someone to take our trash and sewage somewhere else to be dealt with.

[cwalv]

I see what you're saying .. and yes, it's (obviously) true that in order to protect individuals' rights we necessarily have to restrict some: to protect individuals' property rights means we have to restrict what non-owners are allowed to do with that property.

But to say that Government exists to promote outcomes that benefit everyone against individuals' self-interest is like saying that pit-mines exist because we enjoy creating giant pits. Or that cars exist so that we can burn a bunch of fuel. The restrictions on individuals' rights are necessary evils, which need to be carefully considered and minimized.

Hearing it framed the way you did does help me understand many peoples' points of view better though.

[stouset]

That would be like saying government exists because we enjoy bureaucracies.

We accept bureaucracies because it helps us achieve common good that wouldn’t exist if everyone only looked out for themselves.

Roads and other infrastructure. Plumbing and water treatment. Sewers. Building codes. Schools for everyone. On and on and on these are things we’ve decided we’re better if everyone has access to or has to abide by, even if individually nobody would make it happen.