I'm talking about longer-term trends. Post New Deal, government regulation didn't just mean things like safety standards. The government was micro-managing the economy, telling companies where they could build telephone lines or what routes they had to fly and what prices they had to charge. Getting rid of all that was hugely beneficial: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PB_Dere.... And these market reforms weren't just adopted in the U.S. European countries engaged in massive deregulation themselves.
This is kind of a silly example, but in France, the government used to regulate the open hours of bakeries to ensure adequate supply of baguettes: https://econlife.com/2017/07/tbt-throwback-thursday-french-b.... There was a time when this sort of government intervention in the market was completely common, even in the U.S. But everyone realized that less invasive methods of regulation were preferable. (Though France has always been slow on the uptake--Macron got rid of the baguette regulations only in 2015.)
This is kind of a silly example, but in France, the government used to regulate the open hours of bakeries to ensure adequate supply of baguettes: https://econlife.com/2017/07/tbt-throwback-thursday-french-b.... There was a time when this sort of government intervention in the market was completely common, even in the U.S. But everyone realized that less invasive methods of regulation were preferable. (Though France has always been slow on the uptake--Macron got rid of the baguette regulations only in 2015.)