“One simple answer is that there has been a massive rise in the incidence of sanctimony and smugness among the successful that has nothing to do with any change in the underlying reality. Rather, it has been stimulated by politicians who have realized that it is possible to win power by recruiting the most economically successful forty per cent or so of the population in a crusade to roll back the gains made by their fellow citizens in the previous forty years. And how better to rationalize this than to tell people that they deserve the incomes that the market generates?” PoliticsEconomicsCynicismThatcherReaganismNulabor Book:Political Argument Source: Political Argument
“Now it is worth noticing two things about the private substitutes that I have described. The first is that in the aggregate they are probably much more expensive than would be the implementation of the appropriate public policy. The second is that they are extremely poor replacements for the missing outcomes of good public policy. Nevertheless, it is plain that the members of a society can become so alienated from one another, so mistrustful of any form of collective action, that they prefer to go it alone.” FirstsTwoWould BeActionFormPoorMissingPolicyMembersEconomicsOutcomesTwo ThingsExpensiveAppropriateCollectivesSubstitutesNeverthelessNoticingPublic PolicyReplacementsImplementationMissing OutCollective Action Author:Brian Barry
