However, in our time the government spokesmen and the politicians of the left recommend the same measures as a method, even as the only method, to salvage capitalism. The advocates of interventionism or government interference with the market protest that they do not want socialism, but rather to retain private ownership of the material factors of production, free enterprise, and market exchange. But they assert that these institutions of the market economy could be easily misused, and are often misused, by the propertied classes for an unfair exploitation of the poorer strata of the population. To prevent such an outcome they want to restrain the discretion of the individuals by governmental orders and prohibitions. Thus nothing is left to the market other than the right to execute meekly what the government wants it to do.
Nothing remains of the market economy but some labels, although their meaning is radically altered.
The interventionist doctrine fails to comprehend that the two systems the market economy of consumers' supremacy and the government directed economy cannot be combined into a practicable composite. In the market economy the entrepreneurs are unconditionally subject to the supremacy of the consumers. They are forced to proceed in such a way that their operations are approved by the purchases of the consumers and thus become profitable. If they fail in these endeavors, they suffer losses and must, if they do not succeed in amending their methods, go out of business. However, even if the government prevents the entrepreneurs from choosing those projects that the consumers wish them to execute, it does not attain the ends it wanted to attain by its order or prohibition.