It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
Justice Louis Brandeis, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
It looks as though we are about to once again embark on a national program of deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and austerity for everyone else. So how has that worked out so far? Economist Robert Reich explains.
Social psychologist Donald Campbell, in a 1969 paper entitled “Reforms as Experiments,” argued that we ought to try out various social policies, carefully evaluating the results, and repeat only those that are successful. Of course, Reich’s comparison is not really an experiment. California, Kansas and Texas were not randomly assigned to conditions of austerity or public investment, and even if they had been, there were many pre-existing differences between the three states. Nevertheless, prevailing evidence argues strongly against conservative economics and in favor of public investment as a long-term strategy.
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