The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

In “A Problem from Hell,” I had highlighted the work of Albert Hirschman, the Princeton economist who published the landmark book The Rhetoric of Reaction in 1991. Hirschman’s thesis was that those who didn’t want to pursue a particular course of action tended to argue that a given policy would be futile (“futility”), that it would likely make matters worse (“perversity”), or that it would imperil some other goal (“jeopardy”). Senator Obama and I had talked about Hirschman’s work, and I had admired Obama’s ability both to identify the constraints the United States faced and to think creatively about ways we could transcend those barriers. Now, though, endowed with powers he had never had before, he seemed less inclined to believe the United States could get its way.