A Modest Proposal

by Chris Bodenner

Dan Fejes applies Cheney's Law to the economic crisis:

[W]e are looking at near-double digit unemployment through the end of next year, and the economic picture is generally pretty bad. [...] We should therefore create a program with a catchy name like Work Makes Freedom to address it. The WMF’s could be involuntarily matched up with employers, who for a nominal fee would provide permanent food and shelter in exchange for labor. A classic win-win situation. Unemployment would plummet, GDP would go up, and the economy would soar. Illegal immigration would all but end by virtue of eliminating the economic incentive to come here, business costs would go down and that would presumably redound to consumers in the form of lower prices. It would, in a word, work. While reasonable people might disagree on the morality of the WMF program, its effectiveness would be beyond dispute.

This outcome-focused approach to policy is perfectly in line with Antonin Scalia’s recent observation that the legal system is not ultimately concerned with actual guilt or innocence. All that matters is that we have a well-defined, efficient process that comes to a final, immutable conclusion.