[baddox]

The false assumption a lot of critics to libertarianism (or nearly any political philosophy) routinely make is that libertarians believe their proposed system would be a utopia with no violence, no "baddies," no market inefficiencies or market failures, etc. Granted, some libertarians who aren't really educated in the political philosophy probably do claim that. But I don't. I certainly don't think that a pure free market would solve all problems. I just believe there would be more prosperity, less poverty, and less violence in a society without a government than in a society with a government.

[leot]

Libertarians often claim that laissez-faire will always do better than intervention. From the above, it should be relatively obvious that depending on the government and depending on how non-stationary the economy is, laissez-faire could work either quite well or exceptionally poorly.

It's the possibility that laissez-faire could do a much worse job than regulations that libertarians refuse to accept.