I’ve started on [amazon_link id=”0691161623″ target=”_blank” ]Why Government Fails So Often (and how it can do better)[/amazon_link] by Peter Schuck.

[amazon_image id=”0691161623″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better[/amazon_image]

He argues for ‘melioristic realism’ – modest practical improvements in outcomes – which are nevertheless ‘militantly moderate’ given the usual assumption in much policy debate that change must be sweeping and radical. “Policy makers have at best severely limited knowledge of the opaque, complex, social world that they seek to change, and meager tools for changing it.” There is a ‘remorseless’ law of unintended consequences. Incrementalism is therefore the only wise and honourable approach, Schuck argues. Indeed, it’s the only approach that increasingly cynical and distrustful voters will now accept, he thinks.

The book describes what he calls ‘moral hazard’, which is far wider than the usual definition of risk-taking behaviour in financial or insurance markets induced by the fact that somebody else bears the cost. Schuck extends it to all kinds of behaviour whose cost is partly borne by somebody else (i.e. taxpayers) – hence also welfare “dependency”, or crop subsidies, or corporate welfare dependency in sectors such as aerospace and defence sector.

I’ll review it properly when I’ve finished. It’s a US-focused book – here is the Boston Globe and an article by Peter Schuck on the Huffington Post site.