I agree that parts of the "union" were successful in the late 1800's but what had they done to promote their success? Flourished?
The residents of the southern states had no such thing, JB.
They were forced without their consent (eventually at gunpoint) to pay a much larger share of taxes (tariffs) imposed by a "majority" of con-gress (controlled by and to the benefit of northern manufacturers who could not compete in the free market.) When the southern states seceded (declared independence just as the 13 colonies had) the "union" used their armies to destroy the southern states ability to survive, murdering more than 400,000 in battle and more than a million more due to disease and starvation. This was not unexpected by the northern dictator. The northern interests had attempted he same "tariffs of abominations" in 1828 but the north was not prepared at that time to become murderers of the southern people. After the southern states were defeated by the dictator's armies they had no voice in the government for decades. In that era laws were passed that kept the southern states in poverty for more than "4 score and 7" years.
The "free market" did not exist for those under the whip of northern industrial "success."

Both worldviews in the article are incorrect. While the "constrained" view is closer to correct than the "unconstrained" view, society can indeed improve for completely opposite reasons than those who hold the unconstrained view. Society can improve when it encourages entrepreneurship and particularly the inventions of people living in a truly free society. America had such a society in the post-Civil War 1800s ... and flourished.