The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Social Policy

Social policy, i.e. the betterment of the people through governmental action, is well-meaning but often contentious. Contentious because of its impacts on society and the costs to achieve the goal. It should also be contentious as to its propriety of governmental intervention. Whenever I consider a social policy I try to keep in mind some of my “Principles, Truisms, Locutions, and Rules” as follows:

• To deny human nature, or to not acknowledge human nature, is foolish. To not do so will result in much effort, time, and monies being spent on a task that is doomed to failure.
• You cannot implement a wrong social policy the right way. For if it is a wrong policy it will always fail.
• While the goals of a social policy may be noble the details of its implementation will determine if the goal can be reached (i.e. the devil is in the details).
• The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
• Well-meaning is not well doing.
• Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
• Not every problem has, or needs, a solution – It’s called Life.
• Every public policy problem has a simple solution – and it’s usually wrong.
• Experts should be on tap, not on top.
• If you argue from a false premise you will reach a false conclusion.
• Nothing is as good as it appears, or as bad as it seems. But on rare occasions, it can be better, or worse.
• There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Whenever you examine a social policy you should keep the above locutions in mind to determine the efficacy of the social policy. You should also be cognizant, at all times, of the following truism:

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
  - Frederic Bastiat – That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen

Failure to keep the above truisms and locutions in mind will result in the failure of the social policy. Not only will the social policy fail, but its failure will have negative repercussions throughout society that could last for several decades and/or alter the social fabric of our society.

Social policy is often labeled under the euphemism of “Entitlements” which I have written in my observation of “Entitlements”. You must also be cognizant that in order to pay for entitlements you must in some way finance the entitlements. Often, this financing of entitlements is in an increased tax on taxpayers, and often the entitlements spending are on non-taxpayers. Therefore, you are redistributing monies from those that earned the money to those who did not earn the money.

But entitlements can be pernicious as they can have negative impacts on both the people who receive them and the people who pay for them. And most pernicious is the taking of monies from one class of people (the taxpayers) and giving it to another class of people (the non-taxpayers). This conundrum has been illuminated by the following quotes from Abraham Lincoln:

"You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

Or more apropos:

“I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights … and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.”

Therefore, you should be concerned that you are not just taking from some to give to others and that you are spending monies on things that concern the whole.

When debating a social policy you should also keep in mind my observation on “Political Discourse” to assure that the best social policy is being formulated. Failure to do this will result in the failure of the social policy.

Even when you do the above you run into social and economic risks when creating and implementing a social policy. You should be prepared to deal with these risks if and when they occur. You should also remember two of my other locutions:

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”

“You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choices”