Judiciary laws are just one of the many incentives present in the real world. Money is a better data point to base models and predictions than laws.

> What if improving society was a reward-in-itself and we trusted competent managers to do the complicated bits?

This is the mental model many citizen seem to adopt to interpret their government. In my opinion it's closer to a religion than reality. People that willingly reject great personal rewards in favor of the common good are a rarity. They do exist, but expecting people in power to naturally adopt that stance, or expecting that elections is a good way of finding those people, is a mistake.