Much here! -----Neurosis and the Curley Effect - by Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Neurosis and the Curley Effect - by Glenn Harlan Reynolds

As this Harvard paper notes, 

“James Michael Curley, a four-time mayor of Boston, used wasteful redistribution to his poor Irish constituents and incendiary rhetoric to encourage richer citizens to emigrate from Boston, thereby shaping the electorate in his favor.  As a consequence, Boston stagnated, but Curley kept winning elections. . . .  We call this strategy—increasing the relative size of one’s political base through distortionary, wealth-reducing policies—the Curley effect. But it is hardly unique to Curley.”