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DO-GOODERS: Our history of well-intentioned yet harmful policies
On February 19, 1971, Richard Nixon sat in the Oval Office and explained, on tape, exactly why wage and price controls "will not work." Six months later, he imposed them on the whole country.He knew. The shortages, the gas lines, the decade of inflation — the men in that room predicted all of it before the microphones. They did it anyway.
DO-GOODERS is about why that keeps happening.
The blunders here are bipartisan — Theodore Roosevelt, Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, both Bushes, Obama. This is not a book about one party's stupidity. It is a book about a mistake everyone makes.
They are not villains. Good intentions are simply a poor substitute for second-order thinking. A visible problem gets a plausible fix. The fix changes incentives. People respond. The damage lands years later, on someone else — and by then nobody connects it back to the cure.
This book trains you to see the second order coming.
Eight sections. Thirty-two chapters. More than a thousand citations. The questions most books How did Social Security break almost every promise it was built on?Why did the War on Poverty coincide with the collapse of the families it was meant to rescue?Who really pays for rent control, housing subsidies, and the minimum wage — and why is it so often the people the law was written to protect?How did the dollar go from a weight of silver to an idea? The whole Continental currency, the greenbacks, the Crime of 1873, Jekyll Island, Bretton Woods, quantitative easing.Prohibition failed for reasons we can name. So why does the War on Drugs repeat them?What does the Constitution actually say about gun control, abortion, and the Affordable Care Act?Do Bitcoin, Modern Monetary Theory, or Universal Basic Income get us out of the hole?
What you walk away a working framework for judging any policy proposal, built on minimal harm, liberty, and the freedom to experiment. Not opinions to adopt — a method to use. Close the book and you will be able to hear a new program pitched on the news and say out loud, before the segment ends, who it is going to hurt.
Meticulously researched and heavily charted, in the tradition of Adam Smith, Tocqueville, Bastiat, Friedman, and Sowell, and brought current through inflation, homelessness, DEI, crypto, and the debt.
Written for the curious layman, the frustrated voter, and the college student being taught that capitalism is the problem — and for anyone who wants the plain-language differences between capitalism, socialism, Marxism, communism, fascism, corporatism, and laissez-faire economics.
Fair this is not an afternoon read. It is long because the arguments are load-bearing and the evidence is all here — about four books' worth, written so that anyone can follow it. No economics background required.
The hardcover and paperback contain identical text. The paperback uses a larger font and wider margins, so it runs more pages.
Every word is worth reading.
DO-GOODERS is about why that keeps happening.
The blunders here are bipartisan — Theodore Roosevelt, Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, both Bushes, Obama. This is not a book about one party's stupidity. It is a book about a mistake everyone makes.
They are not villains. Good intentions are simply a poor substitute for second-order thinking. A visible problem gets a plausible fix. The fix changes incentives. People respond. The damage lands years later, on someone else — and by then nobody connects it back to the cure.
This book trains you to see the second order coming.
Eight sections. Thirty-two chapters. More than a thousand citations. The questions most books How did Social Security break almost every promise it was built on?Why did the War on Poverty coincide with the collapse of the families it was meant to rescue?Who really pays for rent control, housing subsidies, and the minimum wage — and why is it so often the people the law was written to protect?How did the dollar go from a weight of silver to an idea? The whole Continental currency, the greenbacks, the Crime of 1873, Jekyll Island, Bretton Woods, quantitative easing.Prohibition failed for reasons we can name. So why does the War on Drugs repeat them?What does the Constitution actually say about gun control, abortion, and the Affordable Care Act?Do Bitcoin, Modern Monetary Theory, or Universal Basic Income get us out of the hole?
What you walk away a working framework for judging any policy proposal, built on minimal harm, liberty, and the freedom to experiment. Not opinions to adopt — a method to use. Close the book and you will be able to hear a new program pitched on the news and say out loud, before the segment ends, who it is going to hurt.
Meticulously researched and heavily charted, in the tradition of Adam Smith, Tocqueville, Bastiat, Friedman, and Sowell, and brought current through inflation, homelessness, DEI, crypto, and the debt.
Written for the curious layman, the frustrated voter, and the college student being taught that capitalism is the problem — and for anyone who wants the plain-language differences between capitalism, socialism, Marxism, communism, fascism, corporatism, and laissez-faire economics.
Fair this is not an afternoon read. It is long because the arguments are load-bearing and the evidence is all here — about four books' worth, written so that anyone can follow it. No economics background required.
The hardcover and paperback contain identical text. The paperback uses a larger font and wider margins, so it runs more pages.
Every word is worth reading.
550 pages, Hardcover
Published December 17, 2024
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August 9, 2025
I just finished reading Do-Gooders and found it to be well-written and very thorough. It offers a compelling perspective that’s both informative and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review