by Michael Munger

"There is a problem in public affairs. If there is a state, with the capacity to do good, the temptation to do something is irresistible. If someone objects, the response is always “Well, we have to do something. What would you do?”

"It’s not obvious we should do something. In arenas as diverse as “public” housing, nationally funded foreign aid, poverty programs, and nation-building exercises such as El Salvador and Iraq, the U.S. has shown itself to be terribly incompetent (at best).

"But this impulse to “do something” is fundamental to being human, because it arises out of sympathy and fellow feeling. We have an impulse to act when something is upsetting or seems unfair. And, of course, that impulse is largely a good thing, an evolved sympathy or (as Adam Smith put it) “impartial spectator” that would judge us as bad people if we failed to act.

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