Mr. Hubbard is right to seek a balance between promoting “economic growth and living standards” and “protecting jobs and communities.” But he frames the point in ways that tilt the playing field in favor of progressives.

Mr. Hubbard contends that “markets don’t always work perfectly.” This is a needless concession to a technocratic view that inherently favors bureaucratic discretion. Markets create as much wealth as possible, given the constraints of resource availability and public policy. This is neither good nor bad. It just is. As systems theorist Stafford Beer recognized, “The purpose of a system is what it does.” Insisting on market imperfection judges markets based on irrelevant standards.

This is no mere semantic dispute. Mr. Hubbard’s paradigm inadvertently empowers regulators, who can always justify their meddling by claiming they want to make our economy fairer and more competitive. A better paradigm recognizes that, although markets reliably generate wealth, there are valid national interests beyond wealth maximization. Prudent statesmen should weigh the value of additional wealth against alternative moral goods.

Mr. Hubbard proposes to “assign specific goals to particular interventions.” This is wise. But it will work only if we stop comparing real-world markets to textbook imaginings. It makes no more sense to blame markets for not protecting jobs than to condemn a hammer for not being a screwdriver.