You frame it as a preference that the average person has agency over - we Americans have chosen the ability maybe one day own property over medical and financia

You frame it as a preference that the average person has agency over - we Americans have chosen the ability maybe one day own property over medical and financial security because that's what we value! We have massive physical land space, resources, and control our own currency. We spend over $800 billion a year on our military alone. We can demand more, but we have been trained not to. Water, power, highways - all built when the government had the appetite for massive civic projects, and the top income tax rate was >70%. Now in varying states of disrepair, and cost more than ever to maintain as everything is contracted out to private entities. There is no chance we would get the interstate highway system or the Tennessee Valley Authority if we needed to build it today. But we would not ask for it today, we would just supply endless excuses why it would be too much to ask.