Website: https: //manual. warondisease. org/knowledge/appendix/cost-of-change-analysis. html Abstract: What is the maximum cost to achieve any policy change through legal democratic channels? We estimate \25 billion for the United States and \200 billion globally. These figures represent the upper bound of matching all opposition spending (campaign finance, lobbying) and providing career alternatives for affected legislators. For high net-societal-value policies, even these maximum costs yield extraordinary returns: military-to-health reallocation achieves a benefit-cost ratio exceeding 400, 000: 1, carbon pricing exceeds 1, 000: 1, and occupational licensing reform exceeds 2, 000: 1. The "political impossibility" objection thus reduces to a capital allocation problem. Political change is not impossible; it is merely expensive, and for valuable reforms, the price is trivial relative to the benefits. At system scale, the Optimal Governance Trajectory reaches 56. 7x (95% CI: 19. 3x-304x) the Earth baseline after 20 years, raises average income to \1. 16 million (95% CI: \395, 118-\6. 22 million) versus \20, 483 on the status-quo path, reaches \10. 7 quadrillion (95% CI: \3. 64 quadrillion-\57. 2 quadrillion) in total output, and recovers roughly \101 trillion (95% CI: \83. 3 trillion-\191 trillion) /year in suppressed value (The Political Dysfunction Tax (https: //political-dysfunction-tax. warondisease. org) ). Summary: What's the maximum cost to achieve any policy change through legal democratic channels? \25B for the US, \200B globally. For high-value reforms like military-to-health reallocation, this yields ROI exceeding 400, 000: 1.
Mike P. Sinn (Thu,) studied this question.