I hear the phrase constantly. From journalists, from politicians, from well-meaning advocates. “The system is broken.” They say it about healthcare, about housing, about criminal justice, about education. They say it with frustration and sincerity, and they are wrong.
The system is not broken. It is working.
This is not a semantic distinction. It is a diagnostic one, and getting the diagnosis wrong means getting the treatment wrong.
The Difference
When you say a system is broken, you imply that it was designed to produce a different outcome than the one it is producing. You imply that the current outcome is an error – a malfunction, a deviation from the intended purpose. And the logical response to a malfunction is repair: fix the broken part, and the system will resume its proper function.
But what if the system is producing exactly the outcome it was designed to produce?
What if a healthcare system that leaves millions uninsured is not a broken healthcare system but a functioning profit-extraction system? What if a criminal justice system that disproportionately incarcerates the poor is not failing at justice but succeeding at control? What if an education system that reproduces inequality is not broken but operating precisely according to its funding model?
When you see the system this way, the response changes. You do not repair a machine that is working as designed. You replace it. Or you redesign it. But you cannot do either of those things if you believe you are simply fixing a malfunction.
Who Benefits
The “broken system” narrative serves a specific function: it protects the people who benefit from the system’s current operation.
If the system is broken, then no one is responsible. A malfunction is an accident. Accidents do not have perpetrators. The politicians who designed the policy, the executives who lobbied for it, the institutions that enforce it – all are absolved, because the outcome they produced is described as an error rather than a choice.
This is comfortable. It is also false.
Every system produces the outcomes it was designed, funded, and staffed to produce. When those outcomes include suffering, the suffering is not a bug. It is a feature. Not because the designers are cartoonish villains, but because the system was designed to optimize for something other than the welfare of the people it affects.
Healthcare optimized for profit will produce gaps in coverage. Justice optimized for order will produce mass incarceration. Education optimized for standardized outcomes will reproduce the inequalities embedded in the standard.
These are design choices. They have authors. And the authors are accountable.
The Comfort of “Broken”
There is a reason the “broken” narrative persists despite its inaccuracy. It is comfortable for everyone.
For the powerful, it provides cover. If the system is broken, they can promise to fix it – a promise that requires no structural change, only incremental adjustment. A new program here, a reform there, a committee to study the problem. The architecture remains intact.
For the public, it provides hope without cost. If the system is broken, it can be fixed without fundamentally challenging the distribution of resources and power that produced the problem. Fix the glitch, and things will be fair. This is easier to believe than the alternative: that fairness would require dismantling structures that benefit the people with the most influence over whether dismantling occurs.
For advocates, it provides a politically palatable framing. “The system is broken and we need to fix it” is a message that fits on a banner. “The system is working as designed and we need to replace it” is a message that threatens the people who fund campaigns.
What I Ask
I ask you to stop using the word “broken” when you mean “unjust.”
A broken system deserves sympathy and repair. An unjust system deserves scrutiny and change.
When a family is evicted to make room for a development project that will generate returns for investors, the housing system is not broken. It is functioning. The function is to prioritize capital over shelter.
When a worker is injured on the job and cannot afford the medical care that the job denied them insurance to access, the system is not broken. Both systems – the labor market and the healthcare market – are functioning as designed.
When you name the function, you name the responsibility. And when you name the responsibility, you create the possibility of accountability.
That is what I am here for. Not to fix what is broken. To change what is working against the people it should serve.