"THE UNTEACHABILITY OF MANKIND"

In a 1935 House of Commons debate regarding British air power relative to Germany, Winston Churchill expressed his dismay with the British government's failure to act upon the growing threat of German air power, a threat the government had concealed from the British people.  Government inaction (and even dishonesty) in the face of the growing peril, Churchill said, fell into 'that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience, and the confirmed unteachability of mankind.'  Institutional inertia often keeps governments behind the times. 
 
Democratically elected governments naturally dislike spending more money than they can afford; priorities are always debatable.  British leaders before the Second World War were very concerned about employment, economics, spending and budgets.  One distinguishing characteristic of the American prison crisis is that is might be solved by spending less money, not more!  

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