In a recent issue, Time Magazine boldly declared, "The Free Market Is Dead," and then added: "What Will Replace It?" Of course, one always can expect Time to be disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, and as an academic economist, I have come to realize that after reading Time off and on for more than five decades, this is a publication that rarely gets it right when it comes to economic analysis.

Yet, we also are dealing with a publication that effectively reflects whatever the current spirit might be. In the mid-1980s, Time gave its readers the infamous cover condemning the bacon-and-eggs breakfast and gave massive publicity to the eat-more-carbs "experts." America's climb into obesity followed shortly afterward, and even Time had to backtrack on its original claims in 2014, admitting that the so-called food science truths it promoted turned out to be falsehoods.

One doubts, however, that Time ever will admit in any future edition that it has promoted outright economic lies while it promotes the policies of the Joe Biden administration. Instead, one figures that the publication will do what it always does when the government interventions it champions blow up: blame free market capitalism. For example, even more than a decade after the 2008 meltdown occurred, Time still claims that the free market did it:

We are witnessing the most profound realignment in American political economy in nearly forty years. President Ronald Reagan summed up the conventional wisdom that reigned from the mid-1970s onward in the United States: "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Economists, policymakers, and everyday Americans alike generally accepted that markets, unfettered and free, are the best way to create economic growth. (Emphasis mine)

That ideology began to crack after the Great Recession, and in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it has collapsed. The rise of ethno-nationalism on the right and democratic socialism on the left testify to the growing disillusionment with the conventional wisdom of how government and economics are supposed to work.