What Is a Public-Private Relationship, by Another Name?

Is it time to reclaim the separation of the economy and the state?

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In the recent past, I have made a comment, here and there, comparing a particular faction’s views about the function of government to that of a development corporation, but it was just a metaphor, or so I thought until I recently requested a copy of a historical government record that I had previously reviewed from the Maine Legislative Library in 2014.

I first learned of the report, LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ·GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT October 1, 1976, in 2014, in an email correspondence with Marshall J Tinkle, the author of The Maine Constitution, a Reference Manual, which is the reference work on the Maine Constitution recommended by the Maine Legislative Library.

In 2014, when I requested the document, I received a much simpler version than what I received when I requested the same document of the same title and identical cover in 2021.

The library made an exemplary effort to come up with the simpler version but could not produce it. I…