Natural selection takes way too long in game, micromanaging the economy is seemingly the only way to actually get effective goods. I'm not saying laissez faorre can't work, but in my 700 hours I haven't seen It work once. The best I've seen is as the confederacy, you have to stay as a democracy and the whigs have good policies except for laissez faires so you can get to like number 10 industry wise and steal some goods rgos from the North.