Stardate 20030513.1831

(Captain's log): One of the drawbacks of many solutions to problems is that the solution takes on a life of its own, and may continue in effect long after the problem has disappeared. In the most pernicious cases, the solution ultimately becomes a problem in its own right.

In some cases activist groups have been formed to work on certain problems, and then face the peculiar dilemma of having actually won. The March of Dimes was one such organization; it was formed to collect money for what was then known as "infantile paralysis" and is known now to most of us as polio. Some of the money they collected went to helping to pay for treatment of victims of the disease, while a lot of it was used to finance research. To a great extent because of the March of Dimes, in the 1950's two vaccines for polio were ultimately developed. The later one was superior, and using it, polio was eradicated.

At which point, what was the March of Dimes going to do? Here they had a perfectly good organization, with employees and a group of contributors and no mission. Simple: find a new one. So the March of Dimes broadened its scope.

In this case the solution didn't become a problem, it just started looking for a new problem. But in other cases the solution truly does become a problem.

Rent control was imposed in NYC in WWII as an emergency measure as part of the overall process in the US of avoiding economic meltdown due to the extreme disruption caused by the war. But the problem was that after the war was over, rent control was never lifted and remains in effect to this day. That's because the people living in rent controlled housing in NYC didn't want it lifted, and there were more of them than there were owners, and the renters often ended up being single issue voters, with that being the issue. Ultimately there was nothing to be gained for any politician in NYC by advocating lifting rent controls, but there was a lot to lose.

Of course, the secondary effects of that were to reduce the potential reward for creating and offering rental housing, and thus it reduced any incentive to build new housing. And for existing rental housing, it also reduced the rental yield, and thus there was no reward for the owners in making improvements. Investments in repair and upgrades would not result in increased rental yield, so there was no good reason for the owners to waste their money that way.

Which is why rent control is now a primary problem, instead of a solution to a problem. It's harmful, and most people understand that it is, but as a practical matter there's no easy way to get rid of it.

After the conquest of polio, the March of Dimes managed to find a new mission for itself just as worthy as the previous one. But some such organizations do not. Instead, they cling to the previous mission and continue to try to solve it even after it's mostly been solved.

To that end they end up turning to shrill hype. After all, you've got people working at that headquarters who would lose their jobs if the contributors all decided the mission had been accomplished. The only way to maintain that all-important flow of contributions is to convince them that the struggle must continue.

It is uncommon for problems to be solved as rapidly and completely as happened with polio. Before the Sabin and Salk vaccines were approved, polio was a major threat. After those vaccines were released, in just a few years new cases of polio were virtually unknown in the US, and it was obvious that the problem had been eliminated as long as the vaccines continued to be used. So that's when the March of Dimes started looking for a new mission.

That's rare. In most cases what you get is more like a slow process, where the problem becomes less and less important. "Complete solution" is an asymptote; it's more like a matter of diminishing returns. In such cases, the advocacy groups working on solving these problems won't ever really admit that they've won.

Instead, what they end up doing is to try to make ever smaller manifestations of the problem look hugely important, so as to maintain that all-essential flow of contributions which pay the salaries of those in the HQ.

For this kind of issue, the way for an outsider to tell if the problem has been largely solved is to look at the trend of what kinds of issues the organization seems to be heralding as the latest crisis. (And there's always a "latest crisis", because it will figure heavily in mail sent to the contributor base trying to entice them to make a special additional contribution.)

Take, for example, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons. The mere enunciation of the full name of the NAACP clearly demonstrates just how far we've come. "Colored Persons"? Nobody even uses that term now (though "Persons of Color" is quite common, for some reason). However, the clearly rising irrelevance of the group is also evident in what it seems worried about.

40 years ago, the NAACP was worried about legal apartheid, denial of voting rights, separate-and-unequal schools, and discrimination in hiring and housing. These were significant and legitimate problems, well worth the efforts that the NAACP applied.

Now, the NAACP is irate about the symbols which have been proposed to be put on the state flag of South Carolina. The weapons which were once applied in the struggle against apartheid, such as boycotts and demonstrations,