It's not laissez-faire that has increased living standards, it's the combination of the free market, union organizing, and resulting from that, regulation and the social safety net. Before that, there was still massive poverty. And many countries still experiencing poverty are lacking the latter half of that list.
Note that free market economics and laissez-faire economics are not the same thing. A free market requires a transparent market that's equally accessible to everyone, that's not dominated by cartels and monopolies, and that requires some regulation. Laissez-faire opposes that regulation and wants to give free reign to cartels and monopolies. Adam Smith explicitly warned against those, and pointed out the necessity of workers organizing to avoid being taken advantage of. And that, workers having negotiating power, that is what increased their living standards.
> We must also observe that opponents to laissez-faire liberalizations are by definition proponents of illiberal central planning.
This is bullshit. There's the entire free market economy in between those two extremes.
I don't think it is that extreme. The problem with the poster's assertion is that one individual's "free-market" as the poster defines it, is another's state capitalism.
If the above poster feels that there is a pragmatic need for regulation, fine. However the underlying principles of laissez-faire remain clearly defined. By appealing to a pragmatic need for regulation, the poster opens the door for centralized capture of the market. Long term this trend creates malign incentives.
Historically those who couldn't achieve monopoly conditions by appealing to consumers on the market, used the power of the state instead. So there's a mixed bag at best here. Others contend that the truly toxic monopolies are created exclusively by this process. You can take you pick, we're free to disagree here, but denying the hazards of the regulatory state would be unreasonable. Maybe that's an acceptable trade off and I think that's a fair discussion.
However, all of that is a far way off from an appeal to special circumstances, "because AI", "markets bad" and therefore neo-luddite doom. It isn't something we have observed with other tech innovations, nor is it grounded in axiomatic reasoning.
> denying the hazards of the regulatory state would be unreasonable.
The same goes for denying the hazards of unregulated corporations.
Completely unregulated corporations will, if given the chance, grow to become their own unaccountable states, which the first corporations, like the VOC, absolutely did.
You've chosen a poor example to illustrate your case.
The Dutch East India Company was a state granted monopoly. Obviously in this case, the regulations (state charter) empowered the abuses you feel so strongly about.
More generally, I'd caution against applying the present day norms around human rights to a distant historical case.
That monopoly doesn't mean all that much. Sure, they had no Dutch competitors east of Africa, but they had English, Spanish, Portuguese and local competitors. But due to their extreme wealth, they ended up controlling entire countries, a massive navy, and they minted their own currency.
Any corporation is inherently a grant by the state to act as a legal entity. If you truly oppose government regulation of corporations, you should oppose the existence of corporations themselves. And honestly, I think that would solve a lot of the problems with capitalism. But it would also cripple our ability to take on projects too big for a small group of people. The government grant and the concentration of wealth are the entire point of corporations.
Note that free market economics and laissez-faire economics are not the same thing. A free market requires a transparent market that's equally accessible to everyone, that's not dominated by cartels and monopolies, and that requires some regulation. Laissez-faire opposes that regulation and wants to give free reign to cartels and monopolies. Adam Smith explicitly warned against those, and pointed out the necessity of workers organizing to avoid being taken advantage of. And that, workers having negotiating power, that is what increased their living standards.
> We must also observe that opponents to laissez-faire liberalizations are by definition proponents of illiberal central planning.
This is bullshit. There's the entire free market economy in between those two extremes.