Social Programs

Lisbeth B. Schorr and Daniel Yankelovich tell us that “what works to better society can’t be easily measured” (Commentary, Feb. 16). Such statements, coming from comfortably smug liberals, are highly questionable.

Their article attempts to explain away the massive failure of virtually every “social program” ever tried--by questioning the “methods” used to evaluate them. Of course, some of us are cynical enough to believe that none of these programs were failures. The “unintended consequences” were in fact the intended consequences--so that the erosion of our culture, morality and family, the increase in crime and violence and the collapse of the education system were precisely those outcomes desired by the designers of programs that claimed to address “social problems.”

JAMES F. GLASS

Chatsworth