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In my latest essay, I try to list the major points I'm aware of that puncture the progressive narrative on economics, without trying to directly touch on the Culture War's social fronts.
Reality Has a Poorly Recognized Classical Liberal Bias
I think most people here have enough exposure to libertarianism that they are at least aware of these issues (even if they don't agree with them). If you think I missed one or I'm somehow dead wrong please do indicate so.
From a progressive standpoint, you're not looking at successful systems in hopes of further maximizing efficiency. You are looking for solutions to problems. Expensive projects with dubious results might look economically silly, but the need for them arises from a want. For example, after hearing that a local homeless person froze to death or something. 'We need to do something' always sounds better than 'welp'.
What sounds good vs. what is effective is a common problem, yes.
As a matter of basic logic and follow through, I get a little peeved that if one agrees with the stance that "we, via the coercive power of the state, need to do something" then by god one should make sure it actually is effective. Frequently, this evaluation step is skipped. Homelessness, for example, remains a big problem, and it's typically worse in areas controlled by progressives doing so many things. Just this evening my wife did not want to use our nearby park to put the baby in a swing due to the homeless being all over the playground area (normally they're more broadly dispersed). The city wants to spend millions of dollars on renovating this park but they won't keep the drug-using vagrants away. A homeless man just tried kidnapping a baby out of a stroller at a public transportation station this week, too.
What's funny is that someone like Noah Smith will unironically write that public parks are (in the strict economic sense) public goods. I'd like to show him how easily taxpayer-funded spaces are excludable and rivalrous. Don't even get me started on libraries.
In short, fuck progressivism for being both expensive and ineffective.
I can't help but notice that it sounds like your problem is "the homeless", more than "homelessness". Progressives, on the other hand, are trying to solve or alleviate "homelessness" - ie the problem experienced by the homeless where they, er, don't have homes. Keeping vagrants out of parks would solve the problem of "the homeless" from the perspective of more fortunate people who are inconvenienced by the presence of the homeless, but it wouldn't do shit to solve the problem of "homelessness" from the perspective of its actual victims, the homeless themselves. Indeed, it would make their lives fractionally worse than they already are, by further restricting their freedom of movement. Certainly if I was homeless it would make a big difference to my already-degraded quality-of-life and dignity whether I was allowed to hang out in pleasant green spaces or not.
Granted, seeing homeless people is by definition evidence that the problem of "homelessness" has not been successfully solved, so your anecdote isn't without value. But "the city (…) won't keep the drug-using vagrants away" is a non sequitur. Setting aside the continued existence of the vagrants, the city's willingness or lack thereof to keep them away from parks says nothing about how effective they are or aren't at solving the problem they're actually tackling, which is "there are human beings wasting away outdoors", not "well-fed well-housed people might sometimes have to set eyes upon the starving wretches, who are gross and scary", or even "sometimes well-fed well-housed people might be in legitimate physical danger if they get too close to concentrations of starving wretches". Improving the actual homeless people's lives is the outspoken priority of progressive authorities, and even if you disagree with that priority, you don't get to call them ineffective because they aren't very good at solving a completely different, if related problem that you think should be higher-priority.
(Another notable element is that the "drug-using" bit is the crux of the problem. For most of human history, it didn't use to go without saying that a bum is by definition a bug-eyed junkie who could at any time freak out and bite your nose off. The problem of "the homeless" is really an extreme case of the general societal problem of "drugs".)
You are correct that the two problems are distinct.
Where you're wrong is that progressives tend to deny the distinction, and they suck very badly at resolving either due to ideological precommitments that do not align with reality.
Keep in mind that if the vagrants are outside city limits they are no longer of any practical or legal concern of cities.
The are pretty fucking bad at it, is my point. Ends, means. Inputs, outputs. Intent, outcome.
Law and fucking order is also supposed to THE primary concern of cities, and all of government actually. So when you foster an open-air drug market next to a playground you're using my tax dollars to fuck over my other tax dollars.
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