The British State as Entrepreneur

The United Kingdom is once again embracing active state intervention in economic policy. Such state-directed experiments have long failed in genuinely socialist countries. Fortunately, Britain has never known this form of central planning – and yet Britain is now moving precisely in that direction. Ministries define future industries, public banks invest with targeted intent, and politicians speak openly of "picking winners". What is sold as a pragmatic response to weak growth is in fact a return to state direction. Of course, state intervention has occurred before, but it generally followed a clear principle of success: when a model did not work, the state withdrew. It did not, for ideological reasons, continue riding a dead horse.