‘Cost Disease Socialism’ and the Crisis of Our Time

by Steven M. Teles

A useful new idea has just been offered to the world that captures the actual crisis of our current welfare state, helps explain many of the reasons for widespread discontent in a land of plenty, and also throws into sharp relief the failure of policies from both left and right. This new idea is “cost disease socialism,” whereby the government subsidizes something like education or healthcare with the aim of making it cheaper only to make it more expensive. If policy makers really want to help people, they’ll end this wasteful and counterproductive practice.

33 pages, Unknown Binding

Reviews

[De'Andre Crenshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book and one I suggest for any policy minded person. While it is an economics book the charts and graphs were self explanatory and it lacked any fancy math but got to the point subsidized costs only will not produce affordable outcomes in markets absent smart policy. You have to increase supply or you will bid up prices which should be self evident but for many it isn’t. I enjoyed the walkthrough of several policy failures that are harming people and will use this framework for now on. Also this was a short and easy read so really take a look.