ABSTRACT
Although economists typically advocate the merits of laissez-faire, they often support policies diametrically opposed to its values. In this chapter, I illustrate this point by referring to different case studies in the history of economic thought. I will begin by showing how classical political economists commonly associated with laissez-faire, such as David Ricardo, actually advocated policies designed to accelerate the process of primitive accumulation-the stripping of (partially) self-sufficient people of their means of production. Second, I will demonstrate that, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a good number of prominent economists, including some of the most vigorous defenders of capitalism, came to the conclusion, based on their analysis of the railroad industry, that competitive markets were incapable of functioning successfully. Even John Bates Clark, the doyen of laissez-faire economists, counted himself among these opponents of competitive capitalism.
