Guidance for Do Gooders

The nation exhibits a growing sense of futility as it repeatedly attacks deficiencies in our social system while the symptoms continue to worsen. Legislation is debated and passed with great promise and hope. But many programs prove to be ineffective. Results often seem unrelated to those expected when the programs were planned. At times programs cause exactly the reverse of desired results.

Jay W. Forrester, "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems", 
Technology Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, Jan. 1971, pp. 52-68.