The government indeed causes a lot of problems, but contrary to Matthew Yglesias’s implication, most everyone would agree that government is beneficial.  Even Friedrich Hayek himself rejected a laissez-faire approach to the economy, believing instead that government is necessary to create the infrastructure and legal framework within which firms would compete in markets.  Any liberals who claim differently are simply setting up a straw man in their campaign to distract voters from the real issue in the upcoming election.  The question to be settled is whether we continue the movement toward centralized authoritarian government or go back to an approach where economic and political power are relatively decentralized.  Hopefully there are still enough rational people around to move us in the latter direction.