# The Milton Friedman Model of Policy Change

**One-line summary:** Most policy change outside a prior Overton Window comes about by policy advocates skillfully exploiting a crisis.

In the last year or so, I’ve had dozens of conversations about the DC policy community. People unfamiliar with this community often share a flawed assumption, that reaching policymakers and having a fair opportunity to convince them of your ideas is difficult. As “we” have taken more of an interest in public policy, and politics has taken more of an interest in us, it’s important to get the building blocks right.

Policymakers are much easier to reach than most people think. You can just schedule meetings with congressional staff, without deep credentials. Meeting with the members themselves is not much harder. Executive Branch agencies have a bit more of a moat, but still openly solicit public feedback. These discussions will often go well. By now policymakers at every level have been introduced to our arguments, many seem to agree in principle… and nothing seems to happen.

Those from outside DC worry they haven’t met the right people, they haven’t gotten the right kind of “yes”, or that there’s some lobbyists working at cross purposes from the shadows. That isn’t it at all. Policymakers are mostly waiting for an opening, a crisis, when the issue will naturally come up. They often believe that pushing before then is pointless, and reasonably fear that trying anyway can be counterproductive.

## A Model of Policy Change

> “There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
> 
> — 

That quote is the clearest framing of the problem I’ve found; every sentence is doing work. This is what people who want to make policy change are up against, especially when that policy change is outside the Overton Window. Epistemically, I believe his framing at about 90% strength. I quibble with Friedman’s assertion that *only* crises can produce real change. But I agree this model explains most major policy change, and I still struggle to find good counter-examples.

## Crises Can Be Schelling Points

This theory, which also underlies Rahm Emmanuel’s pithier “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” is widely believed in DC. It’s how policies previously outside the Overton Window were passed hastily:

- In the wake of the September 11th Attacks, sweeping changes to the National Security infrastructure were implemented by the PATRIOT Act in the following month, long before any investigations were complete.
- During the 2008 Financial Crisis, Lehman Brothers was allowed to collapse without a plan for its liabilities in September of 2008. The crisis intensified so quickly that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), an order of magnitude larger than what would have been necessary for Lehman Brothers, passed Congress three weeks later. Then-Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner, famously observed of the time, “that thing we were building for coordinating military operations and providing deterrence, turns out it can also coordinate other really beneficial tasks like disaster relief, mining, carbon drawdown, research, you know, curing cancer?” But we aren’t being asked to use it for those things, and we haven’t been.
- A deployed military (beyond frontier) system demonstrates such generality that it becomes harder to discuss preparations for AI as independent agents:
  - Automated invasion: a country is successfully invaded, disarmed, controlled and reshaped with almost entirely automated systems, minimal human presence from the invading side. Probable in Gaza or Taiwan.
    - It’s hard to imagine a useful policy response to this. I can only imagine this leading to reactions like “Wow. So dystopian and oppressive. They Should Not have done that and we should write them some sternly worded letters at the UN. Also let’s build stronger AI weapons so that they can’t do that to us.”
  - A terrorist attack or a targeted assassination using lethal autonomous weapons.
    - I expect this to just be treated as if it’s just a new kind of bomb.

## Avoid Being Seen As “Not Serious”

Policymakers themselves have serious bottlenecks. There is less division between policy-makers and policy-executors than people think. Congress is primarily policy-setting, but it also participates in foreign policy, conducts investigations, and makes substantive budgetary determinations. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Executive Branch ended up with much more rule-making authority than James Madison intended. Those long-term responsibilities have to be balanced against the crisis of the day. No one wants to start a policy-making project when it won’t “get traction.”

Many people misunderstand the problem with pushing for policy that’s outside the Overton Window. It would be difficult to find a policymaker in DC who isn’t happy to share a heresy or two with you, a person they’ve just met. The taboo policy preference isn’t the problem; it’s the implication that you don’t understand their constraints.

Unless you know what you’re doing and explain your theory of change, asking a policymaker for help in moving an Overton Window is a bigger ask than you may realize. You’re inadvertently asking them to do things the hard, tedious way that almost never works. By making the ask at all, you’re signaling that either you don’t understand how most big policy change happens, or that you misunderstand how radical your suggested policy is. Because policymakers are so easy to reach, they have conversations like that relatively often. Once they slot you into their “not serious” bucket, they’ll remain agreeable, but won’t be open to further policy suggestions from you.

## What Crises Can We Predict?

The takeaway from this model is that people who want radical policy change need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to:

- wait for opportunities,
- understand how new crises are likely to be perceived,
- let the not-quite-good-enough pitches go, to avoid being seen as a crank,
- ruthlessly exploit the good-enough crisis to say, “called it,”
- and then point to a binder of policy proposals.

At the “called it” step, when you argue that you predicted this and that your policy would have prevented/addressed/mitigated the crisis, it helps if it’s true.

What crises, real or perceived, might surprise policymakers in the next few years? Can we predict the smoke? Can we write good, implementable policy proposals to address those crises?

If so, we should call our shots; publish our predictions and proposals somewhere we can refer back to them later. They may come in handy when we least expect.

1. **mako yass**  
   - I wonder what the crisis will be.
   - I think it's quite likely that if there is a crisis that leads to beneficial response, it'll be one of these three:
     - An undeployed privately developed system, not yet clearly aligned nor misaligned, either:
       - passes the Humanity's Last Exam benchmark, demonstrating ASI, and the developers go to congress and say "we have a godlike creature here, you can all talk to it if you don't believe us, it's time to act accordingly."
       - Not quite doing that, but demonstrating dangerous capability levels in red-teaming, ie, replication ability, ability to operate independently, pass the hardest versions of the turing test, get access to biolabs etc. And METR and hopefully their client go to the congress and say "This AI stuff is a very dangerous situation and now we can prove it."
     - A deployed military (beyond frontier) system demonstrates such generality that, eg, Palmer Luckey (possibly specifically Palmer Luckey) has to go to congress and confess something like "that thing we were building for coordinating military operations and providing deterrence, turns out it can also coordinate other really beneficial tasks like disaster relief, mining, carbon drawdown, research, you know, curing cancer? But we aren't being asked to use it for those tasks. So, what are we supposed to do? *Shouldn't* we be using it for that kind of thing?" And this could lead to some mildly dystopian outcomes, or not, I don’t think the congress or the emerging post-prime defence research scene is evil, I think it’s pretty likely they’d decide to share it with the world (though I doubt they’d seek direct input from the rest of the world on how it should be aligned)
   - Some of the crises I expect, I guess, won’t be recognized as crises. Boiled frog situations.

2. **davekasten**  
   - Right. To expand on this: there are also situations where an interest group pushes hard on a broader coalition to move faster, sometimes even accusing their partners or allies of “not caring enough” or “dragging their feet”. Assuming bad faith or impugning the motives of one’s allies can sour working relationships. Understanding the constraints in play goes a long way towards fostering compromise.

3. **eneasz**  
   - John came on The Bayesian Conspiracy podcast to talk with us about this a couple weeks ago, and it's now available for anyone who'd like to hear the conversation :)
   - Isn't the Trump administration a counterexample to this theory of policy change? The Trump administration makes a lot of policy changes which
     - were (and even *are*) outside the Overton window and
     - where there is no immediate crisis, except in the trivial sense in which failing to implement anything which you deem important could be labeled a "crisis".

4. **cubefox**  
   - Isn't the Trump administration a counterexample to this theory of policy change?
     - The Trump administration makes a lot of policy changes which
       - were (and even *are*) outside the Overton window and
       - where there is no immediate crisis, except in the trivial sense in which failing to implement anything which you deem important could be labeled a "crisis".
   - Now is dramatically better than a year ago. It's not even comparable. Rewrite the cover sheet on your policy idea and ping your network.
   - The incoming leadership has a massive amount of flexibility, given that they're fundamentally reshaping so many things at once, but in many cases just have vague ideas rather than specific programs. Give them specific proposals that they can align with their vague pronouncements.
   - Bureaucrats are finding themselves taking on responsibilities for people who were shifted out the door in a hurry, and have incoming leadership who need staff support badly. The survivors will likely have much more leeway than they did before to stop doing things they don't want to do, and start doing things they do.
   - Private sector actors are confronted with government agencies that are in disarray and distracted. Now is a great time to take action.
   - Uncertainty creates a lot of anxiety, so if you're generally afraid of your own shadow, you'll turtle up and hope the storm passes. Given that so many others are doing exactly that, someone ambitious has an opportunity to shape reality around themselves to a degree which was absolutely not possible last year. This is a great time to get stuff done, as long as you're razor focused on the specific things you actually want.

5. **RedMan**  
   - The disarray within the executive branch right now has created an amazing window of opportunity. If you have a clear policy objective, you can probably find someone, somewhere to give you a fair hearing.
   - New officials looking to create radical departures from the previous admin's policies are one route. Career bureaucrats who have survived the cuts, and find themselves suddenly empowered because their supervision did not survive the curs are another. And finally, actors within the private sector may discover that while the laws themselves have not changed, what is effectively enforced is likely to be different (some things more restrictive, some things much less).
   - Good luck!

6. **Noosphere89**  
   - One very important caveat is that the new administration is very eager on AI, and is rather unwilling to consider even minimal touch regulations, especially on open source, so your asks will have to be very minimal on AI safety.

7. **David James**  
   - If I understand your section "Avoid Being Seen As 'Not Serious'" correctly — that the reason policymakers don't want to support "wierd" policies is not because they're concerned about their reputation but rather that they just are too busy to do something that probably won't work — this seems like it should meaningfully change how many people outside of politics think about advocating for AI policy. It was outside my model anyway.
   - The question to me is, what, if anything, is the path to change if we don't get a crisis before it is too late? Or, do we just have to place our chips on that scenario and wait for it to happen?

8. **RedMan**  
   - Now is dramatically better than a year ago. It's not even comparable. Rewrite the cover sheet on your policy idea and ping your network.
   - The incoming leadership has a massive amount of flexibility, given that they're fundamentally reshaping so many things at once, but in many cases just have vague ideas rather than specific programs. Give them specific proposals that they can align with their vague pronouncements.
   - Bureaucrats are finding themselves taking on responsibilities for people who were shifted out the door in a hurry, and have incoming leadership who need staff support badly. The survivors will likely have much more leeway than they did before to stop doing things they don't want to do, and start doing things they do.
   - Private sector actors are confronted with government agencies that are in disarray and distracted. Now is a great time to take action.
   - Uncertainty creates a lot of anxiety, so if you're generally afraid of your own shadow, you'll turtle up and hope the storm passes. Given that so many others are doing exactly that, someone ambitious has an opportunity to shape reality around themselves to a degree which was absolutely not possible last year. This is a great time to get stuff done, as long as you're razor focused on the specific things you actually want.

9. **logicanon25**  
   - Great post! The real question to me is: How do we recognize a effect and reach of a crisis when we are living in the age of multiple crisis. It's combination of many simultaneous crisis that are going to shape our future
     - Eg: climate change combined with emergence of AGI.

10. **David James**  
    - I agree that having a binder of policy proposals ready is effective. There is a dark side to this too. If you are a policy maker, expect plenty of pre-prepared binders awaiting the situation you find yourself in. Different groups vary widely in their predictive abilities and intellectual honesty.
    - The history of think tanks is fascinating and complicated. On one hand, they provide a bridge from academia to policy that can retain some of the intellectual rigor of the former. On the other hand, they can be thinly veiled ideologically motivated places awaiting a favorable political environment.

11. **Ruby** 
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