Facepalm

Essential? No. It's ultimately just as harmful to an idealized version of the maximized productivity via competition dream. Smith and Locke both have quite a lot to say on the topic. Smith in particular makes a lot of points on how regulation is required to prevent capitalism strangling itself, which modern laissez-faire enthusiasts always conveniently "forget." This is the exactly wrong kind of artificial control by the ruling class that they did rail against.

It's what every capitalist does anyways because it's the easiest way to steal money, yes, and because every modern capitalist is trained to be that way through the ideology that has developed around an economic theory.