'Great' Advice

 From VDH, on the "Great Reset":

Assume the worst when the adjective “great” appears in connection with envisioned fundamental, government-driven, or global political changes. What was similar between Lyndon Johnson’s massively expensive but failed “Great Society” and Mao’s genocidal “Great Leap Forward” was the idea of a top-down, centrally planned schema, cooked up by elites without any firsthand knowledge, or even worry, how it would affect the middle classes and poor.

Those precedents certainly didn't turn out as intended. Are there any counterexamples of centralized policies billed as "Great" by their advocates that actually did what they promised? "The Great Depression" doesn't count because it wasn't something people were advocating for being great, just something they were enduring. 

2 comments:

raven said...

So "great" can be put in the same file of cautionary words as "common sense"?
Is "green" a candidate too?

Anonymous said...

I'd certainly consider "green" to be a warning sign, yes.

LittleRed1