Marginal Revolution pointed to this Ezra Klein piece on housing for the homeless in LA. Interesting, encapsulated for me in this quote from one of the mayoral candidates.:
Funders don’t want to give you general operating costs. They want you to solve their pet issue. What I always wanted was money for general operating costs.”
She's talking about her experience as an NGO exec, but the problem is universal. Every problem which Klein identifies, and there are so many neither he nor his readers will come away optimistic, is the result of proponents having tunnel vision, pushing a good idea into law or the courts without reckoning for the effects.
Liberals criticize capitalism for ignoring exogenous effects of the market economy. We also need to recognize that our good ideas will also have exogenous effects.
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