They work when we use them.

Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard takes on the usually economically coherent NYT’s columnist, David Brooks, whom one supposes is having an off day.

But then Brooks goes and writes this: “[T]he old free market policies worked fine in the 20th century, but no longer seem to be working today.”

Really? China just ended an almost two-week-long coming out party showcasing its incredible economic growth since Deng Xiaoping declared “to get rich is glorious” thirty years ago. (Semi) free-market policies seem to be working pretty well for China, and free-market economics seem to be working for Eastern Europe and Ireland too, among other places.

The “old free market policies” produced a two-decade long period of low inflation and economic growth in the United States. It may be true that lately this growth hasn’t been reaching everybody. That’s a problem. But history suggests that drastically raising taxes and expanding the government’s reach into yet more parts of our daily economic life isn’t the answer. Some lessons apply equally to both the twentieth century as well as the twenty-first.

Exactly. The problem isn’t that our economic policies don’t work anymore, rather the problem is that our government, even Republicans, don’t bother following them. Protectionism and high taxation runs rampant, especially as compared to other nations (ironically formerly communist nations) who give global investors more incentives to invest in their countries rather than the U.S.

Ireland, for example, is using our system just fine to kick butt.