Conversation with Amsterdammers reveals much discontent with the way the Dutch Government allocates resources, particularly welfare. The attitude, by no means unique to the Netherlands, seems to be "because it's not perfect, I'm justified in going on the dole/ripping off the system/ripping off the rich/being permanently miserable".
My take on all this is that the problem is the wide and growing gap between people and their government. The gap is not going to close, I believe, until politicians express their goals in terms of outcomes that mean something to real people. Currently government goals are usually derived from an ideology, expressed as funding programmes for public agencies, or surreptitiously determined by the narrow interests of private corporations. Politicians are overwhelmingly ideologues or lawyers, skilled (or able to employ those who are skilled) with words and argument, but removed from the concerns of natural persons. Government should be about delivering outcomes for people, not about representing corporate interests, whether private or public. Social Policy Bonds, by inextricably linking policy goals to meaningful outcomes, would help to close the gap between government and people.
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