When the Perfect Becomes the Enemy of the Good

When Voltaire wrote that I think he had this particular troika of doodlebugs in mind: Ross Douthat, Megan McArdle, and Matthew Yglesias. These three members of the pundocracy spend much of their time blathering about things of which they know nothing.  Recently, they all managed to pen posts that denigrate the idea of doing anything to meliorate the world as it presently is.

Douthat argues that

[a]fter all, what ultimately ails the world is its inherent imperfectibility — its fallen character, if you’re a Christian; its irreducible complexity and tendency toward entropy and dissolution, if you’re a strict materialist. This is true on all the great issues of the day. No matter how many lives may be saved or lost because of health care policy, no lives will be saved forever, and every gain will be an infinitely modest hedge against the wasting power of disease and death. No matter the wisdom of our politicians or the sagacity of their economic advisors, no policy course can guarantee universal wealth or permanent economic growth. And no matter the temperature of our discourse, the state of our gun laws, or the quality of our mental health care, nothing human beings do can prevent the occasional madman from shooting up a crowded parking lot.

I am not sure what he means by "strict" in his characterization of materialist, but I am, more or less, a materialist and what he said there is poppycock. It is, obviously and trivially, true that no matter what problems will remain; this doesn't mean we have to stop. From a Christian perspective there is no greater call to action than this

34 Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: 36 Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? 38 When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? 39 Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? 40 And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.

It is also that case that, according to Christ, the world will be made perfect

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

There is the whole tradition of Christian melioration of things of the this world, like Just War theory, Peace of God, Truce of God, and the whole notion of meliorating the City of Man while the Douthatss of the world await the Son of Man to return and send the rest of us goats to the fiery pits. He is, in other words, full of it. Sure the world as it is is a tough place to love and harder place to fix; but so what?  I thought Catholics rejected a theology of despair.

McArdle reads, or claims to, the recent Atul Gawande, that I mentioned here, and concludes

But not the only reason. Even the programs that genuinely work have a lot of things going for them that a broader program won't.  They have a crack team of highly educated experts who are extremely excited about the program, and understand the ideas behind it backwards and forwards.  They work in a controlled environment, and usually have a decent amount of administrative support for their efforts.  They are time limited, which matters--people are willing to endure lots of things for a limited, known duration that they wouldn't do permanently. They are often offering bonuses for participation.

Then they get implemented in the real world, with ordinary people who don't particularly want to change the way they've always done things, don't really care about the noble ideas behind your program, and don't see any end to it.  And the effects disappear

See, it cannot work because "ordinary" people wont do the work necessary to make change a reality. Of course, the one of the points was that ordinary people with the necessary skills could and did make the various experiments work.  It is also odd, isn't it, the degree of contempt she displays toward ordinary folks.  The article made clear that there was template for success: more intervention led to lower health care costs for the most expensive patients and their health improved.  Her claim is that "ordinary" people hired to engage in similar acts, wont because, you know, "ordinary" folks are lazy asses. This from a woman who cannot add.

Matthew Yglesias, riffing off of something Jon Chait burbled, thinks that although

[w]hen Bill Clinton pronounced that “the era of big government is over” in 1995, he was clearly wrong. And since that time we’ve gotten SCHIP, Medicare started covering prescription drugs, and now we have the Affordable Care Act. So the era of big government wasn’t over in 1995 and it’s not over in 2010, but what is over is the era of big government liberalism. That’s not to say there will be no new changes to health care policy or to education policy or any of the rest of it. But there aren’t any major new fundamental commitments to be undertaken and there isn’t any more money to undertake it with. 

Because

Future public policy has to be about ways to maximize sustainable economic growth, and ways to maximize the efficiency with which services are delivered. 

Remember that neither Chait nor Yglesias has anytime for anyone on their left and Yglesias really and sincerely believes that, despite all reality to the contrary, neo-Liberalism is the most bestest way to make the world a better place for all; primarily, the last quoted sentence suggests, because the supply of robots is unlimited. Color me shocked, a neo-Liberal looks around at a world with high unemployment, increase income and wealth disparity, increasingly deregulated economies falling into cycles of boom and bust much like the bad old days pre-Keynesian interventionism, and so on and concludes that our most pressing problem is the continued depression of workers wages and the continued process of deskilling.  If you don't believe me on the last point go and read one of his posts on education reform. Or, better yet, go read about neo-Liberalism and welfare or the way in which Yglesias, whether he knows it or not, is acting and speaking in the interests of the wealthy and powerful.

If we listen to anyone of these up-and-coming embarrassments to the all-American values of hard work, getting things done, and the gradual creation of an ever more perfect, even if it always sucks, world, we would give up. Why, one wonders, would such a "diverse" group of "thinkers" decide to try and convince everyone to stop working?