We tend to forget that Britain and the United States are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to the relationship between states and markets. The former had the advantage of turning capitalist without competitors, allowing a small and limited state to develop, while the latter was geographically isolated with a huge internal frontier to exploit. The rest of the world, the late industrializers that came after these states, operated under vastly different and more competitive conditions. This matters because when you enter the world economy determines in no small part the type of state that you develop to engage with that economy, with the basic rule being the later the developer, the bigger, and the more interventionist, the state.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 357