Any attempt at creating public policy can be used as a way to engineer society. The tax on cigarettes, part of which goes to anti-smoking campaigns and cancer prevention, is engineering from one end, but the tobacco subsidies to farmer is engineering from the other end. Both try to creat good things in society and ameliorate the side effects.
The problem with the current neoCon social engineering is that it does not follow Pareto-optimal guidelines. Vilfredo Pareto said that for a policy to be optimal, it must achieve its goal (to improve society) by harming as few people as possible, ideally nobody. Most Republican policies, though, are anti-Pareto; they seek to sideline or punish a group or class of people, not always the same one.
(no subject)
The problem with the current neoCon social engineering is that it does not follow Pareto-optimal guidelines. Vilfredo Pareto said that for a policy to be optimal, it must achieve its goal (to improve society) by harming as few people as possible, ideally nobody. Most Republican policies, though, are anti-Pareto; they seek to sideline or punish a group or class of people, not always the same one.