Seriously, Why is Laissez Faire Good?

[Kovax]

The problem is that Laissez Faire is usually combined with other policies that you DO want, and State Capitalism or Interventionism are often bundled with more problematic policies. If I can choose freely between L-F and Interventionism or State Capitalism, it's very unattractive in comparison (other than to remove a lot of micromanagement, whether I want it removed or not), but I often switch to it in order to get other things, such as increased cultural assimilation or the ability to pass certain reforms.

SacremPyrobolum - Crime fighting is an issue, of course, but it isn't any MORE of an issue if you keep your Administrative Efficiency close to 100% than if you have 200% of the required Bureaucrats, because anything over 100% does NOTHING. As long as you don't drop below 100%, the less Bureaucrats you have, the less money you're wasting.

 

[KevinG]

Laissez faire capitalist pay the least for building new factories and factories get an efficiency boots which is rather small. Capitalist however need money to invest into your economy and they get money from factories which mean it is hard to start an industry with laissez faire but laissez faire can be a good way to expand your industry due to the efficiency and low cost.

The discount they get for building factories is more than made up for the fact that they only build shitty unprofitable factories. You build one liquor factory and it will employ 10000 workers all game. A capitalist builds 2 lumber, 1 clipper, 1 small arms, and 3 luxury clothes factories (when you have no silk). It just spent 7x more than you did and it employs 0 workers because all its factories go bankrupt. If you took the money from them and built profitable factories yourself then you'd have even more money.