Consider, 37mrob, that the more government does, the more corrupt it becomes.  There have been and continue to be many "good government" types, people who think that if we could just get the "right people" in office then everything would be great.

Humans are easily led astray.  Power corrupts, absolute power, yada, yada, yada.  But the socialists have forever been convinced that socialism could change human nature.  Trotsky: "Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman."

Alas, humans are an individualist species, not a collective species like ants or bees.  Capitalism–free markets–is the only system so far that is able to both unleash and attenuate human ingenuity and labor to benefit society as a whole.