Is there a more annoying cliché in policy-wonk circles than “there are no silver bullets”? If so, it does not readily spring to mind. What those who intone this ritual phrase mean, of course, is not to expect too much. Silver bullets kill werewolves, we are told: just point, fire and forget. But those are fantasy tales. Real-life solutions are never quite as simple, are they?
Just pick your potential policy panacea: from microfinance to community currencies, wealth taxes to flat taxes to land value taxes, tool sharing apps to “nudges”, there is no shortage of ideas that somehow fail to reshape the world. Some of them have simply flopped, others have never won enough political support to be tried. Many work just fine, if in a quiet, understated sort of way. And quiet and understated is fine — provided you don’t expect a silver bullet.
Why, then, my irritation? Not just because the phrase “there are no silver bullets” is grotesquely overused, but because it misstates the difficulty. In fact there are plenty of silver bullets. The challenge is that not every problem we face is a werewolf.