Much of your special report on the future of the state is very to my liking, and yet I cannot shake off a feeling that it is but a futile lament of times long past (“Taming Leviathan,” March 19, 2011). As you point out, government spending as a share of total output has grown over the last century or so, and it cannot keep growing beyond some point. The least one can hope for is that governments will become more efficient at what they do. If Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher failed to halt Leviathan, though, what can we expect of lesser followers of Friedrich Hayek? But my main problem with the report is that the future of state capitalism is left insufficiently unexplored. To begin with, the last credit crunch ended up in nationalization of several banks, and future crunches are most likely to lead in the same direction. Unable to effectively regulate financial institutions, the state will keep gobbling them up willy-nilly. Even more important, climate change will require growing state intervention. Neither protection from nor mitigation of natural disasters can be left to the market. Under the circumstances, import and export of vital goods and services cannot be left to the market, either. As a consequence, state intervention in global trade cannot but keep growing, as well. Efficient or not, state capitalism appears to have a bright future. Whence my feeling that your lament is likely to leave Leviathan untamed.