Your friend is not wrong.
I think I understand the sentiment, but it worked out great aside from hurting/killing workers and the environment. Of course, those kinds of working conditions and environmental problems are still common in the world (incl. in the US, albeit with much less child labor here), so in that sense we never stopped trying the libertarian approach. Nowadays, the regulatory state exists, but its power and influence still pale in comparison to the power and influence of business owners.
I do agree, generally, that a lot of libertarians advocate for things that have never been tested, and/or never succeeded, in real life (particularly anarcho-capitalists with their religious conviction that free markets and the non-aggression principle will solve every problem).
There’s also, I think, an inexplicable blindness to the fact that many of their proposals would lead to absolute corporate feudalism, or maybe they just think they could some somehow avoid being steamrolled by the rich (presumably by invoking the holy power of the free market and NAP), or maybe they have the misguided notion that they would be the ones in charge, or maybe they actually would be the ones in charge and would therefore love for the rest of us to adopt their philosophy!
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I think what a lot of people do is look at the changes that have happened in the world over the last couple of centuries and attribute all the good things to the hurting/killing of workers. I mean, food is more available than it has ever been, and that’s good. But when people try to give the “free market” credit for producing all that food, I think their arguments are pretty damn thin. Basically they are saying that:
- Technological advances created a fabulously wealthy society
- Capitalists took a big cut of that wealth
- Conclusion: Capitalists taking a big cut of the wealth caused the advancement
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I’d add that this interpretation is actively promoted, too, by those who have a vested interest in having society reject alternatives…
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