Daily Inspiration Quote by Dorothy Denning

A small sentence with a big ideological footprint, Denning's preference for "leaving things to the market" signals a governing style that treats intervention as the exception, not the default. The key word is "prefer": it frames deregulation less as dogma than as an administrative instinct, a bias toward decentralization that sounds pragmatic even when it carries sweeping consequences.

"As much as possible" is the real hinge. It's a safety valve, rhetorically. It acknowledges that markets fail, that public goods exist, that crises happen, while still placing the burden of proof on government action. The subtext is procedural: regulators should justify themselves; the market gets the presumption of competence. That move matters in public service because it shifts accountability. If you intervene and something breaks, it's your fault. If you don't and something breaks, it's the market's unfortunate but natural turbulence.

Contextually, coming from someone identified as a public servant, the line doubles as a statement about legitimacy. It's an attempt to square public authority with a cultural suspicion of bureaucracy: I am not here to run your life, I'm here to get out of the way. It also smuggles in a moral claim about freedom, framed as consumer choice rather than civic power.

The irony is that "leaving things to the market" is itself an active choice. Markets are designed, enforced, and maintained by policy: property rights, competition rules, liability regimes. Denning's phrasing makes that scaffolding invisible, which is precisely why it works.