as a general principle of organisation I prefer the diffused initiative and quasi-automatism which go, or can be made to go, with private property and the market … This does not imply … any blind belief in the existence of economic harmonies. I have argued already that, within the present framework of law and institutions, I see no guarantee of good results from the free play of private interest. It does imply, however, the belief that, rather than to proceed by destroying the market and enterprise system, it is better to proceed by trying to improve it. It implies that, rather than stake all on the dubious prospects of overall collectivism, it is better to retain existing mechanisms, but to erect around them, so to speak, a system of laws and institutions within which they may be made to work the right way. It implies, that is to say, a belief, not in a spontaneously harmonious free enterprise, but rather in a deliberately constructed competitive order.

This idea of a competitive order is by no means a simple notion. It is not just trust-busting – although there are many ‘trusts’ which I would like to see bust. It involves the systematic revision of the whole apparatus of law and order – the law relating to patents, the law relating to restraint of trade, the law relating to limited liability and corporations, and many other branches of the law – with a view to creating conditions which tend to maintain effective competition, where it is technically possible, and to control monopoly in the public interest where technical conditions make monopoly inevitable. […]