Mitt Romney is going to reform Washington in the vision of Adam Smith.
Laissez-fairism is fortunately dead.
It could make a dramatic comeback when bureaucrats cease drawing a salary. Post-war Germany and Japan were more "laissez-faire" than ever before, or after. The former Soviet Union moved towards a more market system when its economy stalled. Seems laissez faire is only tried if no option is feasible. Fortunately for Japan and Germany it worked.
Describing the postwar Japanese economic system as 'laissez-faire', considering its mercantilism and the whole amakudari phenomenon (basically, a 'revolving door' on steroids), strikes me as a bit off-base, even though it's true that the government didn't intervene particularly much in the internal market except to hand down Bismarckian dicta on a few specific benefit policies.
