The present article aims to reflect on the anachronism of Brazilian statist thinking in the constituent period and after the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the current regulatory reform movement. For this, a brief overview was made of the theory of economic regulation to discuss Brazilian statist thinking in the constituent period and post-Constitution of 1988 and present considerations on the regulatory reform agenda. It was found that the debates held in the Constituent Assembly remained imbued with the old Brazilian statist thinking, which resulted in an anachronistic constitution destined to produce deleterious effects on the economy. The liberalizing reforms in the second half of the 1990s only partially reversed such effects. However, creating regulatory agencies to regulate markets brought typical elements of the Brazilian state bureaucracy. The current debate, however, now focuses on a regulatory reform agenda in light of the principles of the new regulatory governance to ensure the most efficient and effective regulatory options.