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Notes -
That is not the aim of Western governments and has not been for some time. At least not "all citizens". The aim in terms of citizens is leveling -- making life better for the worst off and worse for "the rich". Outside of that, governments explicitly prioritize things which traditionally man has struggled against -- predators, "the environment" -- over citizens.
edited to focus on a different aspect
Do western governments prioritize these other aspects because there is the presumption that the base citizenry is a hemostatically stable organism able to self regulate? Whether this assumption is wrong or not, this is a first order difference vastly different from the Asian societies I am familiar with. Here the governments view the citizenry as needing a level of government management to internal forces spiralling out of control or external forces from disrupting what is posited to be a delicate balance. Social shame is employed and even sanctioned by governments to effect this ethos, and it seems much less expensive than deploying active state resources to gently encourage irredentist antisocials back into the fold.
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