Unless you're an anarchist, that's exactly what the government's job is: decide what's best for people. That's why you have prescription only drugs, anti-vice laws, securities. All these things exist because the government think the people are too dumb to decide things by themselves. Not saying I agree with it, just saying you would need to argue for anarchism if you were to argue "who is the X government to decide what is best for the X people?".
I think the government's job is to provide the goods and services that the free market can't effectively provide or wouldn't provide to most citizens. Roads, military defense, healthcare, etc. I'm no anarchist but I very much disagree the government should be deciding what is best for people. Areas where it tries to are a mistake.
> that's exactly what the government's job is: decide what's best for people.
Wrong. The government’s Just is to protect life and liberty and ensure a legal framework for the enforcement of contracts. It’s just is most certainly not deciding what is best for people. Protect my rights and otherwise stay out of the way.
Why could we not protect ourselves? Many ancaps or ancoms would argue that would be possible. The government assumes they know better than you do on how to enforce contracts or protect yourself and impose a monopoly on force by force to make sure you can't build alternatives. So yeah, it is based on the premise that they know better than you do on certain areas of life. People just disagree how wide these areas should be. I may be mistaken though so feel free to prove me wrong.
