[crusso]

That's because people aren't smart enough to elect their own high quality leaders. Then after that, they aren't smart enough to assess the quality of the leaders they elected.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a good example of why that is.

This is where capitalism is different from government. Money flows to success and tends to form feedback amplification. Smart people make more money than stupid ones. Smart people reward smart companies with their increased access to money.

The above is why I want to see government as small as reasonably possible. It should be limited to providing a basic framework, defense, maybe some basic research like for the Internet, Space exploration, etc. Only things that have a good track record of success. After that, though, the answers should typically come from the private sector where winners and losers get sorted out based more often upon merits than politics.