This is not a Scotsman. Not a true Scotsman anyways.

Yes, here it is the refrain of the libertarian “crony capitalism.”

If only capitalism were freed from the artificial constraints of such freedom-killing measures as 40-hour work weeks and child labor laws, it would achieve it’s natural equilibrium because capitalism is a force of nature, like a beautiful gazelle that yearns to run free upon the open market yet it is trapped by the cruel cage of government regulation.

The freest of era of the “free” market, which is to say the time of least regulation and government intervention, was the 19th century, aka the age of robber barons and blacklung and children in textile factories getting their fingers caught in industrial machinery.

Oh, wouldn’t it be grand if we just returned to such a Gilded Age?