What if, instead of this all or nothing win/lose style of "government",
we actually tried things out, looked at the results, improved the good bits, reduced the bad?
There has been some experimentation, in communities. And of course there are many ideas in place around the world.
Maybe we could make things better by trying stuff.
No, that could never work.
Good idea. In 1934, when Upton Sinclair was running for governor of California on a somewhat leftist platform, FDR did not give him an endorsement, but FDR did manage to say that the country was big enough to handle a little experimentation in the states. Sounded good at the time. Sinclair lost his race to the movie moguls.
The problem is the part about who decides good or bad, what's an improvement, what's a wise reduction. America experiences this whenever a bill that's passed both houses gets reconciled with itself. We might do better if we just let anybody mail in a bill to Congress, and whenever they thought we needed a new law, they would pick just 2 out of a hat and would have to decide which one of the two to pass.
OTOH, a luxury once tried becomes a necessity, a vice once enjoyed becomes a passion. Unlike the case of the glorious clean water supply here in Oregon, in many things it is proper for the government to aim for a wise balance of pumps and filters.