"Hayek was never blind to the potential difficulties inherent in this political synthesis, nor dismissive of the serious criticisms of capitalist society and liberal theory presented by thinkers of the left. He explicitly disavowed the ideal of laissez faire and distanced himself from the sort of free market utopianism common among more extreme libertarians. He thought it foolish to pretend that capitalism always rewards those who work the hardest or are otherwise deserving, advocated a minimal social safety net for those incapable of supporting themselves in the market, and had no objection to government taking on tasks far beyond those defining the "minimal state" of Nozick’s libertarianism, so long as this did not result in monopoly and private firms were allowed to compete with government for provision of the services in question. Like Marx, he believed that liberal capitalist society has a tendency to produce alienation, insofar as the impersonal rules of conduct upon which it rests necessarily eschew any reference to a common social end or purpose, and thus cannot satisfy the deepest human yearnings for solidarity. Unlike Marx, he also thought we nevertheless simply have no alternative to capitalism if we want to maintain the level of individual autonomy and material prosperity that are the most prized characteristics of modernity, and that it is naive and dangerous to pretend otherwise."