The fundamental error of economic libertarians is one of faith, faith in the divine efficiency of the almighty market. And, like chiliastic Christians everywhere, market fundamentalists—no matter how many times events refute their articles of faith—can be relied upon to find some handy explanation, usually involving bureaucratic malfeasance, for avoiding the plain fact that any market more complex than a vegetable cart requires regulation. Market fundamentalists believe that if government would simply get out of the way, the goodness and virtue of our enlightened buisnessmen would lead us to a promised land of milk and honey and gold-plated bathroom fixtures. They would be better off attending to the hard teachings of Machiavelli, who observed that “it is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.” This is a fine maxim for business regulation and one well borne out by the housing bubble, as is its corollary: “Men never do anything good except by necessity.”
—Roger Hodge
The Mendacity of Hope