This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 26, 2026

Everyone loves Michigan. Just listen to them.

We’re “Pure Michigan,” a “Winter Water Wonderland” with “Great Lakes, Great Times.” Michigan is the home of Motown, Beer City USA, Tree Town, Vehicle City and the Cherry Capital of the World.

Michigan makes things. The Motor City powered the Arsenal of Democracy. The state was famous for furs, farming, fishing, flakes (corn and snow), furniture and factories. Besides that, we were (and are) a logging state, a mining state and a chemical state.

Today, Michigan is a mix of all of the above, though industries, businesses and workforce are ever-changing. What we will be next is impossible to predict – though the government sure does try.

In the early years of Michigan, state government tried to direct our economic path. Envying New York and other "improved" states, politicians didn’t want to wait to see what the market developed – they instead took taxpayer dollars to subsidize canals, railroads and steamships. It nearly bankrupted Michigan; setting the state back before it really got going.

But things changed. Politicians learned their lesson and voters attempted to make sure it would never happen again by passing a constitutional amendment that prevented the state from subsidizing industries. Once government was out of the way and entrepreneurs free to create, Michigan grew into one of the most prosperous places on the planet.

Many people long for those glory days, but could the Michigan we all love be built today?

The entrepreneur mindset seems to have weakened, replaced by cronyism. Too many businesses fight for government subsidies and regulatory advantages to protect themselves from competition. Too few favor lowering taxes, reducing regulations and promoting entrepreneurship and competition.

It’s a system of naked favoritism. Corporations and big business fight for special subsidies. Movie stars and their unions argue for film incentives. Alcohol wholesalers battle for their distribution monopoly. Hospitals stomp out any potential competition with “Certificate of Need” laws. Energy companies spend tens of millions to keep an electricity monopoly. Auto dealerships and liquor stores lobby hard to ban or limit others from encroaching on “their” turf. Almost every licensed industry argues that “health and safety” means only they should be able to provide services people want. A host of non-profits and civic institutions spend less time making the case for donors to give voluntarily and more time lobbying for taxpayer-funded pork.

Nimbyism is rampant. Michigan residents fight to prevent their neighbors from building housing. We protest new factories. Some show up to local board meetings to argue against a gas station replacing another gas station. Others try to stop a (cleaner, safer) pipeline providing the energy we need.

I’m not sure the Michigan we all know and love could ever have arisen with this mindset. Could Henry Ford ever have built the factories to put the world on wheels? Could Haworth and Herman Miller and Steelcase have gotten off the ground? Could Hemlock Semiconductor get built today, or would complaints about using a lot of electricity sink it? Could our world-class golf courses have been planted with the pushback from environmentalists about water usage?

Michigan citizens need a mindset of entrepreneurship, optimism and growth. The state needs public policy that embraces competition and rejects cronyism. Local governments and state citizens who accept that things change – and when driven by the market, typically change gradually and for the better. Will it happen? I’m hopeful.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.