A comic series on the ideas behind public policy. Chapter 1, Trade-offs, follows a student leader who learns that every policy win comes with a compromise.
Why
Ideas such as trade-offs, incentives and unintended consequences sit at the heart of every policy debate, but they can feel abstract on the page. A story with characters and pictures makes them easy to follow, and hard to forget.
Chapter 1: Trade-offs
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” — Thomas Sowell
The first chapter is built on this idea from the economist Thomas Sowell. Vipin represents students at a policy conclave. He arrives knowing what he wants, but he isn’t the only one at the table: other interest groups have their own demands. He soon learns he can’t get everything he asks for, so he makes compromises to win at least some outcomes that matter to the people he represents.
That is how policy works in practice: not a search for the perfect answer, but a series of choices about what to give up for what.
Story by Biyas Muhammed and Sonal Kuruvilla. Illustrated by Remya Rajeev.
What’s next
Padayatra (a journey on foot) is the first of a series of comics we are developing on public policy. Each chapter will take on another idea that shapes how policy is made.
