Exactly. The government should represent the will of the people. Too often I see people argue from the point that government is intrinsically some alien entity they have no control over, but when that's the case, that just means your government is wrong. Government should represent the people, and any government that doesn't, needs to be fixed. (The US government certainly needs to be fixed.)
that's really dangerous, because the will of the people can get really hairy.
Besides, if the will of the people is to take care of everyone through social services, then why do you need a government to do it? It should just happen naturally. What you are saying, is that a few select people that are chosen by a popularity contest should be given the authority to make people do things against their will.
Your alternative presumably is the current system, where a few self-selected people, kept in power exclusively by wealth, caste, and social connections - often in defiance of real wisdom or foresight - force everyone else to act in ways that benefit that self-sustaining governing class at the expense of everyone else.
No, how about many people act together voluntarily in a distributed system of social support that is resilient to attack by small numbers of powerful people?
Because people need to pool into something to be able to afford big projects for the benefit of all. Government is the effect of this, you collect taxes so you can afford to build a shiny new hospital to attend to a region.
If you want to pool resources collectively in a smaller scale you are just replicating this structure with different powerful people, or different structure of power, but a society will always need it, doesn't matter if resources are money, materials or labour.
> that's really dangerous, because the will of the people can get really hairy.
Yes, but that's a direct consequence of having an ill-informed, poorly educated , credulous, angry, compliant majority. Societies where the elite are looking to retain their power base will typically channel fewer resources to public education, and more to the institutions that reinforce their own position.
Difficult to undo once it's been started, and (IMO) it's been happening for a very long time in AU, UK, US -- and presumably almost everywhere else that self-identifies as a capitalist democracy.
So, yes, the will of the people can get hairy, but of the two options -- force the agenda of the elite upon everyone else, or work towards a better society -- the preferable option very much depends which of those groups you're in right now.
Also noting that if you're in the uninformed group, you may not recognise that, or think anything needs changing.
