(CNN) -- In the war against regulations and government restrictions, proponents have argued that it would be better for our economy to let the market rule. If we just get government out of the way, the market would determine business winners and losers and more jobs would be created. It's an appealing, red-blooded, American-sounding pitch. But what are the practical outcomes of such a policy? Let me tell you what the outcome would have been for me. I am the American portrait of a small-business success story. Microsoft might have started in a garage, but my business started in a renovated gas station at the corner of St. Paul and College streets in downtown Burlington, Vermont. That's where Jerry Greenfield and I opened Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream Scoop Shop with a $12,000 investment,$4,000 of it borrowed, on May 5, 1978.
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Ben Cohen: Politicians' mantra is get government out of business, let market forces rule
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Ben & Jerry's ice cream would never have survived in that environment, he says
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Cohen: When his business was small, Pillsbury tried to block sales of Ben & Jerry's
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Cohen: Only biggest businesses survive in an unregulated, cutthroat environment
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