Framing things as right or wrong, win or loss hides the fact these are complex dynamic systems that keep oscillating between different constantly evolving states. When things are complex there is no right and wrong.<p>Economic history shows us Mercantilism was the response to Feudalism(no private ownership, barter instead of money).<p>Each system has its own contradictions that get amplified as they accumulate/exercise power.<p>As a reaction to Mercantilist thought (increase in govt controls, subsidies, tariffs, worship of gold, silver accumulation via trade as source of security), we get the Physiocrats/laissez-faire/Adam Smith/"natural laws" of production+distribution/free markets/free trade/value of labor & industry over trade. Then we get Marx focusing on exploitation/alienation etc and the Gilded age and Great Depression. Out of which we get Keynes/New Deal (and huge increase in the role of Govt). In the 70s it leads to stagflation and we get Reagan/Thacher/Milton Friedman. Which then leads to 2008 GFC and back to Keynes.<p>Things are constantly going back and forth. But each iteration reveals new dimensions. The system learns the value of land, then labor/population, then capital/distribution, then institutions/organization, then information/attention etc. Things might look like "more of the same" but the new dimensions change the story each time.