Yes, free university and free healthcare are infrastructure. We already have free highschools after all. What's the moral difference between the government building a road that I get to drive on "for free" and building a hospital I get to go to "for free"?
> It's not controversial that the vast majority of people just want to be provided a comfortable lot in life by others.
It's not controversial in the same way that saying the earth is flat isn't controversial, it's just wrong.
Society "moves forward" because every day that passes there are literally billions of humans working to build/harvest/grow/research/construct/etc different things.
Nobody actually believes e.g. elon musk is out there putting rocketships together, right?
President kennedy said "lets go to the moon" then he went back to the white house to attend state dinners and sleep with whoever came near. Ten thousand nasa employees went to work every day and actually built rocketships.
(The generic argument here is something like "well elon musk gave them money to build rocketships" except then you have to ask where musk got the money to give to other people in the first place and the argument rapidly breaks down)