OED definitions consistently imply that this word signifies change for the better. But I increasingly find people acquiescing and joining in using the term reform even when they frankly regard the change in question as for the worse. Thus U.S. social workers refer to the 1996 “Welfare Reform” as reform without scare quotes, even when they regard it as a counter-productive expression of animus towards the poor and their children. And people now seem commonly to speak and write of entitlement reform, tax reform, campaign finance reform, health care reform, immigration reform, and so forth, without in the least implying that the proposed or contemplated changes would be (in their opinion) for the better. Have others in this community noticed this?
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Talking outside politics and the more general usage, there is certainly no inherently positive development implied in a more academic use that I come across often, whereby some stage of a language is said to have reformed its verbal system or its desinence categories, etc. It just has its most literal meaning there: changing the form of something into something different.– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 0:30
2 Answers
Reform in its political function always at the least claimed to make a change for the better in the eyes of those proposing it. However (taken as a political entity, as with the examples you have given), the partisan nature of politics allows for differing and even opposing viewpoints on what is actually beneficial. Reform proposed across the aisle (as is said in the United States) is likely to be decried for its negative qualities rather than the improvements that it promises to make.
The OED definition presents what is essentially a matter of opinion -- opinion of what for the better is -- though it would seem that people proposing the reform would have to view it in such a positive light to be accurately called as such.
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2Hard to think of a reform proposal that everyone, including its makers, thinks is a bad idea. And then passing it.– OldcatCommented Dec 11, 2014 at 19:13
Reform is defined by most dictionaries I checked as you say:
to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses, to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action; to induce or cause to abandon evil ways.
I think it's still used that way. The value of reform, however, is in the eyes of the reformer, and if the powers that be (or the majority) call something reform at the time it's happening (because it's been labeled as good), that's what it will be called, until the new powers that be rename it for what it turned out to be in history. Even Mao Zedong labeled his political movement to brainwash an entire people as thought reform in the People's Republic of China (思想改造, also known as "ideological remolding" or "ideological reform"). I'm sure Lenin and Pol Pott did as well.
As a physician, I can tell you without an iota of doubt that we desperately need health care reform, and I certainly wouldn't put that in scare quotes. I'm sure that others believe in the good of their causes: immigration reform, entitlement reform, tax reform (I believe I should be paying more taxes), campaign finance reform (desperately needed).
