I can't speak to other countries, but in the US there was no "rampant removal and destruction of governmental regulations."

Under Reagan in the US, the saying (which I'm getting slightly wrong in the wording but not in the meaning), "staffing makes policy" took on a huge new dimension. Laws against M&As were and are still on the books. Reagan avoided having to deal with pesky things like convincing congress by instructing his justice department to for the most part ignore the anti-trust regulations. That has been more or less the status quo for the last 40+ years.