Again, so dumb, Loren. Do you think I said that every American wants a laissez-faire economy? Or that the laissez-faire discourse has generally been offered in good faith rather than as a smokescreen for plutocracy (for strict competition between the poor masses and for socialism for the wealthy elites)? Have a look at my political writings on Medium, especially the ones on how conservatism and libertarianism reduce in practice to social Darwinism, and you'll see that this strawman doesn't apply to me.

What's aspirational aren't the technicalities of neoclassical economics since no one knows about those outside the Ivory Tower. The analogy between Newtonian (deterministic) physics and economics only ever fed into an excuse not for perfectly competitive capitalism but for plutocracy. The purpose was never to eliminate all government regulations, but only those that are meddlesome to individuals with the most wealth and influence over the government.

Of course the libertarian ideologues are in the minority. They'd say the government shouldn't even bail out banks to prevent a depression. They think the economy is an efficient system that always works best without government help. And they're dumb. And wealthy individuals will demand help from the government when they're in trouble, making laissez-faire economics utopian. But these elites pretend they want a "free market," just as they want freedom fries and a Patriot Act--because that's the rhetoric that sells. The pretense was conducted mainly by the Republican Party for most of the twentieth century, but it captured the Democrats under Clinton, leading to the neoliberalism that united both parties until the populist backlash we're seeing under Trump.