A powerful government is also really good at using its power to increase competition, encourage competitors, protect new comers, and so on. And a powerful government in command of its people will do more of that.

What government "power" is required to 'encourage competitors'? If there is business opportunity the market will attract participants all by itself without any need for government intervention.

In my experience, government incentives are generally misguided and force mis-allocation of resources. That is to say the government is distorting the market to favor activity that wouldn't otherwise be attractive to a business.

Net neutrality would be a good example.

In what sense? ISPs are government-granted monopolies in the first place.

More on the issue: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju...

Yes, imagine how much more competition there would be on the pharmaceutical market, say, if governments didn’t discourage innovation by demanding that products be tested and safe. Think of barriers to entry it creates in the chemical industry that waste must be discarded of in highly regulated (and expensive!) ways. Not to think of air travel, which is so regulated that I doubt we’ll ever see a startup in that market ever again. /s

This seems to me to be the trap of a false choice between regulatory power without bounds vs no regulation at all. A much more interesting discussion would be about the proper scope of regulation.

To take your example regarding pharmaceuticals, instead of mandating a particular regime of testing and efficacy, why couldn't the government require products that have not passed that particular hurdle be labeled as such?