As Dracula recoiled from the cross, liberals shrink in horror from the phrase “laissez-faire.” The thought of a world without government control of capitalism sends them screaming into the night. But dark night is where we are, with coronavirus closing the economic life of America.

This sentence from a Wall Street Journal story sends a chill down the spine: “Large chunks of the U.S. economy froze in March as the coronavirus pandemic closed malls, restaurants, factories and mines, causing Americans to cut retail spending by...