Reply #17: A Failed Experiment

[UpInArms]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=286285&mesg_id=286285

On January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan told the nation: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Thus began a grand experiment: Release the American economy from the bonds of government regulation. Individual enterprise and initiative, the profit motive, the free market and open competition will usher in a new birth of freedom and a new era of unprecedented prosperity.

"It's morning in America."

Twenty-six years later, what do we have? A dismantled and "outsourced" industrial base, an impoverished work force, a nine trillion dollar debt burden upon future generations, a captive media that deprives the public of essential news as it issues outright lies, a degradation of education and scientific research, a trashing of the Constitution and its guaranteed Bill of Rights, a seemingly endless war with no prospect (or even definition) of victory, and the contempt of the peoples and governments of the civilized world.

The grand experiment has failed, and we are just beginning to realize the enormous costs of that failure.

How did it happen? It happened because the core dogmas of this so-called "conservatism" - the possibility and desirability of an ungoverned society, the superior "wisdom" of an unconstrained free market, the suitability of simple greed as a driving force of society - were fated from the start to fail the test of "real world" application.

...more...

with a hat-tip to CrisisPapers