Why virtuous idealism fails

...precisely because of its high ideals

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?" ~ Frederic Bastiat

But it's worse than that: A monopolist of law making, law enforcement and judging of the law cannot normally be forced to do what you want. It may, or may not, care for the sick, the poor, the weak and the helpless. It may decide to leave them to die...or worse.  The fact you advocate its existence for a particular reason, or the fact that the charter that creates it specifies some prime directive it must follow has as much force and effect as the promises of politicians prior to elections. In other words, none at all:

“The man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.” ~ Rothbard

“I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.” ~ James Madison

"If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one." ~ Robert LeFevre

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”~ Lysander Spooner

"If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding." ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Statism is a logical fallacy, because it is the self-contradictory belief that monopoly power can be its own preventative, the belief that it is logically valid to attempt to prevent the violation of the rights of individuals by establishing an institution with the monopoly power to violate the rights of individuals, and the belief that it is ethically valid to assert that any person or group of people has superior moral authority to any other person or group of people.

The truth is that one cannot achieve liberal ends using the state, because the state is inherently anti-liberal:

Politicians, bureaucrats and leaders will compete for positions of high authority in the government bureaucracy that idealists believe must exist in order for their ideal society to become reality. But what kind of people have the best chance of winning any such power struggles--whether military, political or bureaucratic?

High-minded idealists are always at a severe disadvantage in such power struggles. People who intend only to help others are not likely to be the best at using and retaining governmental power--their very idealism, if sincere, prevents them from using the strategies and tactics most likely to win.

So the most ruthless people tend to succeed at wielding coercive power, and kind-hearted people invariably find themselves at a disadvantage in making practical, effective and implementable decisions on how to most effectively use the power of the state.

"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating." ~ Frederic Bastiat

Hierarchical power structures can have only one result: giving effective ownership to the rich and powerful, and denying it to everyone else. The state is a single point of failure, and a high-value target of corruption. Rich, powerful and evil people will _always_ end up in control of it. **Always.**

The ruling class advocates and supports the state because they know this. They use the state for its ability to grant immunity, monopoly, special privilege and legitimacy.

Iron law of oligarchy: "sociological thesis according to which all organizations, including those committed to democratic ideals and practices, will inevitably succumb to rule by an elite few (an oligarchy). The iron law of oligarchy contends that organizational democracy is an oxymoron. Although elite control makes internal democracy unsustainable, it is also said to shape the long-term development of all organizations—including the rhetorically most radical—in a conservative direction.

Robert Michels spelled out the iron law of oligarchy in the first decade of the 20th century in Political Parties, a brilliant comparative study of European socialist parties that drew extensively on his own experiences in the German Socialist Party. Influenced by Max Weber’s analysis of bureaucracy as well as by Vilfredo Pareto’s and Gaetano Mosca’s theories of elite rule, Michels argued that organizational oligarchy resulted, most fundamentally, from the imperatives of modern organization: competent leadership, centralized authority, and the division of tasks within a professional bureaucracy. These organizational imperatives necessarily gave rise to a caste of leaders whose superior knowledge, skills, and status, when combined with their hierarchical control of key organizational resources such as internal communication and training, would allow them to dominate the broader membership and to domesticate dissenting groups. Michels supplemented this institutional analysis of internal power consolidation with psychological arguments drawn from Gustave Le Bon’s crowd theory. From this perspective, Michels particularly emphasized the idea that elite domination also flowed from the way rank-and-file members craved guidance by and worshipped their leaders. Michels insisted that the chasm separating elite leaders from rank-and-file members would also steer organizations toward strategic moderation, as key organizational decisions would ultimately be taken more in accordance with leaders’ self-serving priorities of organizational survival and stability than with members’ preferences and demands." ~ Encyclopedia Britannica