 Is letting the players play good? Necessarily good? Adam Smith might have said no, as might Hayek. A praiseworthy rule of law—a praiseworthy market process— facilitates mutually beneficial trade by internalizing externalities, by minimizing transaction cost (especially when it comes to acquiring information), by minimizing opportunities to acquire people’s goods without their consent (thereby encouraging people to trade on agreeable—thus typically beneficial—terms), and by being extremely cautious about trying to do more than that. When a government succeeds in doing that much, and further succeeds in restraining itself from trying to do more, progress is the likely result, which is not to say progress is guaranteed. 