Social engineering, environmental causes, and freedom are exactly what this is about (as well as congestion, which I forgot to mention earlier).  How should decisions about a society be made?  If public transit is a social good, is it okay to encourage it by taxing people out of their cars?  Even though people clearly prefer their cars for all of these reasons?  What if city planners fail to foresee a technological innovation (like fleets of self-driving cars) and end up spending billions and inconveniencing millions over  an ultimately unnecessary cause?<p>Let&#x27;s use another issue for example.  If we wanted to end Cosa Nostra (the capital-M Mafia), and didn&#x27;t care about freedom, the cops could tomorrow round up all of the known members and throw them in jail forever.  Or better yet, execute them. That would end the whole ordeal. We don&#x27;t do that because we think there&#x27;s a greater good in freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.  We believe in due process and the rule of law.  There&#x27;s in fact good logical arguments underpinning and supporting the utility of these ideas, but we don&#x27;t need to trot them out every time we invoke the ideas themselves. They are cornerstones of our very successful civilization.