> If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or that their money is wasted.
Isn't people in a community pooling their money together what a government is? Often the increase in property values alone is more than the cost of building the bridge, the difficulty is co-ordinating them.
Ideally yes, but practically it more often than not isn't, especially if it's the federal government that decides.
If governments owning and directing whole economic sectors truly was an efficient way to manage an economy then Socialism (government demand driving the economy) would've beaten Capitalism (private demand driving the economy) easily and by a long shot.
It didn't just fail being more efficient than Capitalism, it even consistently ended up impoverishing and corrupting any nation that tried implementing it.
Isn't people in a community pooling their money together what a government is? Often the increase in property values alone is more than the cost of building the bridge, the difficulty is co-ordinating them.