Treating Symptoms

The New York Times' Ross Douthat takes a longish, balanced look at the poor and programs meant to improve their lot. He believes the programs make the poor less impoverished but not better integrated into the productive life of our society. See what he concludes:

Just getting to the point where we could all agree that 1) public spending can make people less poor and 2) public spending hasn’t delivered on the Great Society’s social promises would be a big win for reasonable debate. Because that combination of realities, and the various questions that it raises, is why this argument exists, why it’s genuinely interesting, and why it isn’t going away anytime soon.

If you assume, as I do, that Douthat is correct, what would a reasonable person conclude? That Great Society social programs palliate symptoms, not causes. Today we have no good ideas about how to treat root causes without seriously abrogating individual freedoms.