> The period of perhaps greatest economic growth in the West, the 1950s and 60s, was the period of greatest government regulation and direct involvement in econ

> The period of perhaps greatest economic growth in the West, the 1950s and 60s, was the period of greatest government regulation and direct involvement in economies. What calculation leads you to conclude there was more regulation in the 1950s and 1960s than today? My impression is that "deregulation" in practice largely amounted to at best a decline in the rate of increase in federal regulations, not an overall decrease in total regulation. Today there are vastly more federal rules and regulations and also substantially more government employees as a percentage of total employment than there was in the 1970s. Um, here's a plot of one proxy for new regulations - the size of the federal register in pages: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-regulation-of-american-people.html http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-regula... There were several high-profile cases of actual deregulation (eg, regulations related to trucking and airline fares), but it amounted to pushing back the tide - the nature of government programs is to grow and most have continued to do so, occasional changes in fashionable rhetoric notwithstanding.