What you see throughout history is that countries that adopt free market policies, and protection of this market, hugely increased their standards of living. We can see it happening right now in the BIRC countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brazilian_government_enterprises
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_sector_undertakings_in_India
If the USA were to take example from any of these BRIC countries, we'd have to nationalize far more of the economy than we currently do.
