The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

From Santa Fe Institute

Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University Throughout the 19th century, the U.S. government played a major role in economic life, promoting economic development through infrastructure and education and regulating many markets. In the late century, Americans realized that an even larger hand was needed to address the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, from slavery and child labor to anti-union violence and monopolistic practices. But then something changed. Americans started to reject "big governmen...