Even if we suppose that you're right that the costs of forced intervention outweighed the costs without such intervention, without a control group (the analogy

Even if we suppose that you're right that the costs of forced intervention outweighed the costs without such intervention, without a control group (the analogy with Sweden is limited), the counterargument is simply that it would have been worse with minimal forced action. My preference is a more Bayesian argument a la Huemer's In Praise of Passivity: https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers/passivity.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers/passivity.htm > Abstract: Political actors, including voters, activists, and leaders, are often ignorant of basic facts relevant to policy choices. Even experts have little understanding of the working of society and little ability to predict future outcomes. Only the most simple and uncontroversial political claims can be counted on. This is partly because political knowledge is very difficult to attain, and partly because individuals are not sufficiently motivated to attain it. As a result, the best advice for political actors is very often to simply stop trying to solve social problems, since interventions not based on precise understanding are likely to do more harm than good.