Biased Remedies

The Costly Collusion of Social Scientists & Government Patrons

In the 1970s, Irving Kristol began to document a disturbing consequence of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, which, among other things, had funded large numbers of social scientists to research the best ways government might help poor and minority families. Despite the optimistic titles on the studies, a close analysis of the programs they recommended showed that the lives of the intended beneficiaries had changed very little. Indeed, the only people who appeared to have profited were those who had designed and administered the programs.

This realization led Kristol to postulate an intrinsic flaw in the relationship between social scientists and their government funders: just as there is a natural tendency for...