Conservatism Fails

It has been said that Conservatism can never fail - it can only be failed.

This helpful little aphorism allows movement conservatives to explain away circumstances where their core beliefs fail to deliver. It's not the belief that failed; it was just poorly implemented.

So today Ken Sikkema (former leader of the Michigan State Senate) comes out with a letter stating that deregulation of the state's utilities failed to produce any of the benefits that were supposed to come from competition. How can this be? Isn't de-regulation always supposed to help the consumer? Do you mean to say that it only helped the utilities (who wrote the bill)? Oh my gosh, I just can't believe it.

De-regulation was also supposed to help banks offer cheaper mortgages, allowing more Americans to own homes! We've seen how well that is working. And how about competition helping the public schools? No improvement in test scores for seven years from Charter Schools? Oh, dear - must need a little more time for the miracle of competition to deliver.

Obviously my point here is that Conservatism does in fact fail - and not because of poor execution. Some essential services do need to be regulated despite the cannons of Conservative ideology. Although the wonders of Adam Smith's free hand of competition may work in theory, the real world, particularly in the short term, is not so cooperative.