Must-Read: Will Wilkinson: Public Policy after Utopia

Must-Read: Will Wilkinson: Public Policy after Utopia: “That all our evidence about how social systems actually work comes from formerly or presently existing systems is a huge problem for anyone committed to a radically revisionary ideal of the morally best society…

…The further a possible system is from a historical system, and thus from our base of evidence about how social systems function, the more likely we are to be mistaken about how it would work if it were realized…. There’s basically no way to rationally justify the belief that, say, “anarcho-capitalism” ranks better in terms of libertarian freedom than “Canada 2017,” or the belief  that “economic democracy” ranks better in terms of socialist equality than “Canada 2017.” You may think you can imagine how anarcho-capitalism or economic democracy would work, but you can’t.  You’re really just guessing—extrapolating way beyond your evidence…. This is a general problem. But it does hit especially hard for those who appreciate the unpredictability of complex systems and the inevitability of unintended consequences…. Expert predictions about the the likely effects of changing a single policy tend to be pretty bad…. Our predictions about the outcome of radically changing the entire system are unlikely to be better than random. If your favorite system is quite a bit different from any system that has existed, then even if it were true that it would rank numero uno in terms of your favorite normative standard, you’re not in a position to rationally believe it…. This is a hard lesson for ideologues to swallow….

It is intellectually corrupt and corrupting to define liberty or equality or you-name-it in terms of an idealized, counter-factual social system that may or may not do especially well in delivering the goods. Commitment to a vision of the perfect society is more likely than not to lead you astray…. For me, the death of ideal theory has meant adopting a non-speculative, non-utopian perspective on freedom-enhancing institutions…. What we need are folks who are passionate about freedom, or social justice (or what have you) who actively seek solutions to domination and injustice, but who also don’t think they already know exactly what ideal liberation or social justice look like, and are therefore motivated to identify our real alternatives and to evaluate them objectively. The space of possibility is infinite, and it takes energy and enthusiasm to want to explore it….

Nobody will fight for what works if the people who will fight are blind to what works, or if the people capable of seeing what works don’t have the imagination to look for it, or won’t fight for it if they see it. I think this is what makes Niskanen different. We’ve put misguided, utopian idealism behind us, but retain the moral passion that once attracted most us to radicalism, and have channeled it into discovering and fighting for what is most likely to actually work to make our society freer, more prosperous, and more just.