Government meddling in the marketplace reduces competition and slows the creative destruction — capitalism’s secret sauce

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Investor and author Ruchir Sharma’s new book, What Went Wrong With Capitalism, eloquently details how for decades advanced market economies have strayed from the basic principles of market-based competition and pricing. The result has been slower economic growth — which, ironically, has caused many people to question whether capitalism works anymore, which only leads to more growth-killing interventionism. But what is often attributed to market failure is actually government failure.

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Collectivists have successfully sold the narrative that the Reagan-Thatcher era in the 1980s ushered in neoliberalism and government austerity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Keynesian counter-cyclical government spending was supposed to support the economy during recessions; it now supports the economy throughout the business cycle. At best, Reagan and Thatcher only slowed the rate of increase of government........

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