Or helped the anarchists adopt the best of both a state approach and free market approach.
What value is a state approach supposed to be bringing to the party?
Well here in the UK we found that certain pieces of infrastructure have benefited from a centralised state approach. The Royal Mail worked gloriously to an extent where competition with it was nigh impossible inside the UK, until privatisation of it began and companies instead of developing their own infrastructure simply threw their load on the Royal Mail meaning the state run segment not only had to deal with its load but every private companies load too which they had to take on either for free or at a reduced rate due to the laws surrounding the privatisation of mail in the UK. As such both private industry and the Royal Mail have suffered.
Public transportation was another example of the state approach providing superior service. Bus and rail travel was safer, cleaner and generally better before privatisation than it is now that private companies have been given it all. The national rail network was a purely state orchestrated project done in the time before privatisation with the majority of stations and rail lines in use today being the same ones laid down by our government back when they ran the rails. Under private operation rail maintenance, customer service and overall quality have degraded rapidly. A similar story with the buses.
Then there was the national grid. A system designed to put the power plants where it was cheapest to put them in the country and ensure that the power generated at Drax stations A & B in Yorkshire got down to lands end in the southwest as well as London, Cardiff and Glasgow. To ensure that our nations power infrastructure was as efficient as possible. Nothing like it exists in the USA because there was never the drive for it as well as certain practical limits as a result of their size. By having this gigantic centralised system the information could be better collated and understood leading to better decisions being made in regards to the construction of power stations, their location and where the power went. This meant that the taxpayers received savings on their power bill thanks to a power station being located in the cheapest possible place to run it. Since privatisation however we've had a steady rise in prices in regards to power and the infrastructure is only maintained because the system forces the companies to help maintain it or go bankrupt when their plant in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire suddenly gets cut off from all those customers in London, coupled with a healthy amount of the government sticking their noses in and fuming at the power companies when they play silly buggers.
British Telecom had a similar story. Investment via taxpayer money made it possible for the UK to have a world class communications network fairly quickly with a consistent standard. The company was initially state run after it was spun off from the Post Office until it was privatised.
Also in regards to the NHS. Well it's not perfect but it's better than most. And our private sector in healthcare is much kinder to its customers than their US counterparts with a much higher standard of service and more lax in regards to paying out.
There are merits to the state approach. Just as there are drawbacks. Hegelian dialectics anyone? Thesis creating antithesis resulting in synthesis.