re: Now, for the rest of your post
I couldn't decide on just one hackneyed cliche with which to respond, so I have to combine two to describe the illogic of your response: You're putting the cart before the horse, and you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
ME: Pure laissez-faire capitalism would last about a day until runaway imbalances produce oligarchy.
TOM: This is an article of liberal faith, and inarguable on that basis. If the capitalist system had, as it should, a government forbidden from interfering in normal commerce, it would be difficult to maintain an oligarchy or monopoly. Look at your history. Were the famous abusive monopolies maintained by performance on the market, or by government decrees, special favors, and laws protecting them from competition?
No, Tom, it not a matter of faith, it's embodied in my post itself and it can be analyzed with ordinary logic. It's not rocket science.
Could the "government decrees" that established monopolies and favoritism possibly have preceded the concentration of wealth that enabled those favors to be purchased from politicians? Of course not. Why would politicians make legisltion to do those things unless there was already somebody who wanted to benefit from them and could pay for them? In fact, this neatly illustrates what I said about oligarchy arising naturally and automatically from laissez-faire capitalism. Those who first concentrate wealth the old-fashioned way then have the means to further multiply their wealth and solidify their positions by purchasing favors from the government.
Concentration of wealth causes government interference in the economy because the wealthy benefit from it; it's like a free market trading in influence--supply and demand. It's the wealth that corrupts the government, not the other way around. Nobody's going to forbid the government from getting involved in the economy as long as there are powerful people who benefit from it.