The government has expanded by any objective measure:

From 20% of GDP to 40% of GDP today

From a 34 regulatory agencies/offices to 77 today.

From 5 percent of occupations needing a license in 1950 to 23 percent today

From zero federal environmental review in 1950 to 26 months today for major projects.

From almost zero collective bargaining agreements in the public sector in 1950 to approximately 36 percent of public sector workers being covered by them today.

From 9,700 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations in 1950 to 200,000 pages today.

This idea that the private sector is crowding out the government isn't supported by any empirical evidence, though it's a very common narrative and widely believed.

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flir an hour ago | parent | next [-]

So you're saying it's improved.

(If you're not, I think you have to explain why the expansion of between say, 6k YBP and 1950 was good expansion, and the growth between 1950 and today was bad expansion. Otherwise it looks like you're picking an arbitrary point and saying it was "best")

	▲	ETH_start an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not making a normative claim. I'm saying that the narrative in the article — that the private sector has taken over functions of the government and the government has been in retreat — is exactly the opposite of what the statistics show.

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snowpid 5 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Which government has expanded? Most communist governments felt after 1990 and privatised their economies.