America used to regulate business. Now government subsidises it | Robert Reich | The Guardian

I argued that the government was already engaged in a hidden industrial policy, disguised, for example, as grants to the aerospace and telecom industries by the Department of Defense and to the pharmaceutical industry by the National Institutes of Health. It would be far better to do industrial policy in the open, so that the public could assess what it was paying for and what it was getting in return.

Opponents, which included just about every Republican, were indignant at the very idea that government ought to be “intruding” on their blessed free market.

America used to regulate business. Now government subsidises it | Robert Reich | The Guardian