I use homelessness as an example, but I believe the logic generalizes. You’re right that in many cases, the incentives facing an institution aren’t powerful enough to matter, or the people involved could/would just go do other things.
But there are also a lot of cases (see: almost all nonprofits) where people’s jobs depend on the existence and salience of the problem, in which case I think the incentives do start to matter.
I use homelessness as an example, but I believe the logic generalizes. You’re right that in many cases, the incentives facing an institution aren’t powerful enough to matter, or the people involved could/would just go do other things.
But there are also a lot of cases (see: almost all nonprofits) where people’s jobs depend on the existence and salience of the problem, in which case I think the incentives do start to matter.