“Cowperthwaite developed a low opinion of bureaucrats. ‘I trust the commercial judgment only of those who are themselves taking the risks,’ he said. ‘When Government gets into a business it tends to make it uneconomic for anyone else.

He was beginning to formulate a theory he would later call ‘positive non-intervention’. His idea was that government intervention in an open economy often does more harm than good.

The default position should be not to intervene, unless careful consideration gives good reason to do so. ‘Clumsy bureaucratic fingers’ should be kept out of the ‘sensitive mechanism’ of the economy, he said. It is better to rely on the ‘hidden hand’.”

~ Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future by Dominic Frisby.