Are "leftist intellectuals" somehow meaner and more destructive than other Fnargles? Or is it simply that this brand of Fnargle is really, really good at re-directing power to itself?
Yes and yes, and the reason for both is how they take power.
Nearly every ruler, and virtually every ruling class, in history has built their power by skimming off of the top; tithes are one of the oldest non-arbitrary forms of taxation, and the word literally means a ten percent cut. The incentive for the ruler is always to increase their personal profit by increasing the size of the pot he skims from, which means that as Machiavelli astutely pointed out a benevolent ruler and an amoral one will be indistinguishable.
The reason the modern situation is so bad is that the conditions where the Cathedral profits have nothing to do with how well it governs, and are in fact typically opposed. If Somalia stays a war zone for the next ten thousand years, that's quadrillions of aid dollars which otherwise wouldn't be spent.
Joseph Stieglitz, one of Bill Clinton's top economic advisers,made a similar point about modern corporate mismanagement. When the shares are controlled by an individual or a small number of individuals everyone has an interest in making sure that the company is running efficiently; when the shares are too widely distributed speculation rules and the Board of Directors ends up calling the shots in their own interests. The result is bad service, poor profits and a bunch of wealthy Board members.
Okay, so I came into this considering the notion that attempts at reform frequently fail plausible. 2) I also came into this believing that there isn't any good feedback mechanism to kill counterproductive charity, so it's not a stretch to apply that to reform. 3) Also, perverse incentives can sometimes perpetuate dysfunctional things.
You've helped me to connect these dots and I am considering the notion that a system of perverse incentives is fueling a large amount of counterproductive reform, at least insofar as it comes to foreign policy. I don't have ...
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)