Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“In his book The Poverty of Historicism, Popper advocated for what he called ‘piecemeal social engineering.’ In opposition to utopian social engineering, which aimed at redesigning societies according to grand blueprints and five year plans, piecemeal social engineering was focused on making small, tinkering adjustments, learning from the result, and using that information to make new adjustments. As this process iterated, it would lead to an accumulation of small improvements and refinements to social institutions, bettering the situation of a given society. … But how optimistic should we be about the prospects of this piecemeal engineering?” (11/12/24)