Industrial growth was assumed to require shielding entrepreneurs from liability for harm.

Evidence

For industrial capitalism to flourish, it was widely assumed that entrepreneurs had to be free to take risks and launch new enterprises without being held responsible for every adverse consequence of their actions. Society would presumably benefit if producers’ freedom of action was maximized, even if this meant that the “quiet citizen must keep out of the way of the exuberantly active one.” — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3404

Categorization

• XREF: Directly ties the competing values of freedom (producer autonomy) and fairness (redress for injury) that the course treats as foundational; also resonates with Lochner-era liberty-of-contract reasoning.
• DEFINE: Establishes the distributive premise behind the second regime: maximizing producers’ freedom of action was understood as socially beneficial.