Business in the Republicans’ America is flourishing, but also changing

AMERICAN free enterprise has overcome many daunting challenges in its history. Now it faces a new one: proving to a grumpy public and a sceptical world that the answer to American capitalism’s problems lies not in restraining business, but in liberating it. The unshackling comes courtesy of a Republican president and Congress. Its effects on investment for long-term growth and on increasing levels of competition, productivity and pay—the effects that would make America a better place for all—are still unfolding.

Leading executives know that the stakes are high. In his latest letter to the shareholders of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, the bank’s boss, worries that “Younger people in the United States, who are effectively going to inherit the wealthiest nation on the planet, seem to be pessimistic about our future and capitalism.” Larry Fink, the boss of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, worries about “popular frustration and apprehension about the future”.