Capitalist farmer grows 10% more food; they make higher income from the sale of their crops. Communist farmer grows 10% more food; the farmer doesn't see extra benefit. Why bother to do the extra work?
The ideal person might answer "For the greater benefit of my fellow countrymen". A realistic person might answer "Come to think of it, I wonder how little work I can do before I actually see concrete negative consequences".
Invisible hand: two people following their own greed by engaging in a non-coerced, knowledgable exchange, produce a surplus benefit, in which both individuals are better off.
Munger test applied to the idea of the invisible hand: Does it work for greedy people? yes. If one party won't be better off as a result of the exchange, they won't participate.
Munger test applied to the idea of increasing revenue by increasing tax rates on the ultra-wealthy: Does it work for greedy people? Not linearly, because they'll have a great incentive to find ways to restructure or shelter their income from the increased taxes.
Someone needs to write the laws. Laws need to be updated over time, as society changes and our values change.
The density of cities like Manhattan/SF mean you have to have some level of regulation above and beyond what makes sense when everyone has an acre of his own land, to do with what we chooses. Whether it's noise, pollution, traffic safety, fire codes, etc., I think giving up a little bit more freedom than you would living on, say, a farm, is the price of living in a place with so much jammed in to so little space.
Maybe something to think about, if you take umbrage with people "imposing their whimsies" (I'm not being sarcastic, I really think about this a lot). Austin is nice, but it's a car-city. Show me one walkable city without the petty tyranny of city government and I'd move there pretty quickly.
For what it's worth, I tend to think less of these impositions as tyranny because, specifically, if I don't like what's going on in San Francisco, I can move to Austin.
Not just human, humans from California.
Just saying.
One of those associated with California (in recent times) is that they love adding countless small regulations and rules that businesses and citizens must follow (almost like Germany, but not as bad). Somewhat related to the smug/elitist leftist stereotype.