The reason laissez faire capitalism has never been tried isn't because people are imperfect, or because they lie, cheat, steal or act in greed. The reason laissez faire capitalism has never been tried is because the system isn't set up to be laissez faire capitalism. It's set up to be corporate socialism, and it always has been. Nobody (at least not any of the captains of industry and finance) really wants laissez faire capitalism. Heaven forbid, that wouldn't do at all. If that happened, big business would lose all of those lovely taxpayer funded subsidies and bailouts, and the funding for their endless resource wars.