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These days, a government stands or falls largely on its economic performance. It is held responsible for maintaining living standards, and for generating the economic growth with which to pay for the sum total of private and public goods. In addition, according to Emy and Hughes, it also supposed to manage and steer the economy. No government can afford for long to follow policies, which interfere with the viability of the productive system, because capitalist society depends so much on economic growth. The inner logic of a capitalist system is resistant to any reform that threatens the viability of production. There are limits, then, to how far one can rely on the political system to steer or control the economy. In its ideal form, capitalism contains two essential ingredients. The first is the deliberate pursuit of personal profit as the goal of economic activity. As Max Weber remarked, the outstanding characteristic of capitalism is production “for the pursuit of profit, and ever-renewed profit” (Robertson 1987: 463). The second essential ingredient is market competition as the mechanism for determining what is produced, ad what price, and for which consumers. If the government attempts to regulate the supply of,