Malcom Gladwell Tackles Social Services Theory 12.31.08

I won't spoil it for you, but Malcom Gladwell's 2006 article in the New Yorker articulates the tension well:

http://gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html

This snippet cuts to the heart of the issue, but won't make sense until the article is digested:

"Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis. Even the promise of millions of dollars in savings or cleaner air or better police departments cannot entirely compensate for such discomfort."