ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a central question in designing adjustment policies. The development of non-legal adjustment policies will be severely constrained by constitutional limitations on policy development that begin with the unquestioned assumption that the administration should be treated as a private firm. Adjusting to administrative action requires that we draw distinctions between aspects of individual and collective welfare—no workable liability regime or compensation system, insurance program, or any other adjustment policy can recognize all aspects of human welfare. The use of legal liability as an adjustment policy implicitly assumes that the idea of corrective justice should apply to the administration. Treating the administration like a private firm represents a refusal to recognize the benefit-gaining function of the modern welfare state. Where the bureaucracy is accounting for both private and social costs in its decision-making processes, using adjustment policies to force the institution to internalize those costs simply generates increased administrative costs and will not alter regulatory behaviour.
