The simple answer: socialism is seductive.
http://www.valuesandcapitalism.com/dialogue/economics/seduced-socialism
From Frederic Bastiat’s essay The Law:
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.
Written in 1850, The Law was Bastiat’s rebuttal to the prevailing pro-big government sentiments of his day. It was assumed then, as it is assumed now, that the government (so as long as it is run by “really smart” people from Ivy League schools) can play the role of Grand Arbiter and fairly divvy up the nation’s wealth without wrecking the wealth-creation forces that provide the Monopoly money for their social experiments (and pet-projects).
This is a fallacy of the utmost order.
(Article is available in its entirety at the link. Zim.)
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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