Track Record

If the “free-market” theories of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were correct, the United States of the last three decades should have experienced a golden age in which the lavish rewards flowing to the titans of industry would have transformed the society into a vibrant force for beneficial progress.

After all, it has been faith in “free-market economics” as a kind of secular religion that has driven U.S. government policies – from the emergence of Ronald Reagan through the neo-liberalism of Bill Clinton into the brave new world of House Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan.

By slashing income tax rates to historically low levels – and only slightly boosting them under President Clinton before dropping them again under George W. Bush – the U.S. government essentially incentivized greed or what Ayn Rand liked to call “the virtue of selfishness.”

Further, by encouraging global “free trade” and removing regulations like the New Deal’s Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banks, the government also got out of the way of “progress,” even if that “progress” has had crushing results for many middle-class Americans.

True, not all the extreme concepts of author/philosopher Ayn Rand and economist Milton Friedman have been implemented – there are still programs like Social Security and Medicare to get rid of – but their “magic of the market” should be glowing by now.
~ from If Ayn Rand and the Free Market Fetishists Were Right, We'd be Living in a Golden Age -- Does This Look Like a Golden Age to You? by Robert Parry ~

Back when I was involved in social and civic events, you could always tell who the conservative members of the group were by their reactions to new ideas or strategies. Someone would float a new idea -- perhaps thinking "outside the box" -- and these sorts of individuals always would pooh-pooh the notion.

What if it doesn't work, they would cry. We have no track record to judge it by, others would chortle. Yet, these very same people would cling to strategies and programs that had a track record of NOT working!

We simply need to give it more time, they would plead. I know it hasn't work as intended to this point, some would offer, but we just know that it will work this time. (Note: If it didn't work in the past, it almost never worked when group members caved in to try it again.)

Why is it that conservative-minded folks are so concerned about track records except when it comes to track records that are bad? If a strategy has been tried for several years and yet it doesn't work as advertised, the rational person will try something new.

Oh wait. I just answered my own question. The operative term is a "rational person."

As SNL's Emily Litella used to say, Never mind.