And this is the irony of short-termist policy making. By blocking reforms in order to maintain some localized status quo, you are very often dooming the future of that localized status quo. Instead, you should be planning ahead to scale it down or transition out of it entirely, and attempting to help people make that transition smoothly over the course of a generation. Ultimately it's just another form of greed and selfishness: "my desires today are more important than your needs tomorrow."