This is always the response to any libertarian argument of even mild government reform "If you don't like it, then go live in Somalia". As if rolling back government intervention in the economy to something like say the booming 1950's isn't a rational proposal.
It's because history shows that more government intervention, especially in the domain of education, health and labour, creates better societies.
Two words: New Deal.
Most of the US' prosperity since has been as a result of this. Then in the 1980's it was rolled back and guess what? Things are going to shit again. Maybe not in NY and California, but large swaths of the US are mired in poverty, poor employment prospects, crumbling infrastructure and shitty education.
How about Europe? Here's a bunch of tiny states with different languages, pretty much zero resources, very little land, who accept unprecedented amounts of immigration (partially to their detriment), who are still able to provide their citizens with the highest standards of living in the world.
Show me a single large, prosperous, libertarian state. Not a city-state that cannibalises their neighbours' resources and acts like a tax haven (Monaco, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Singapore, etc...) - but a large, prosperous, diverse state that is libertarian. The problem is, there are none.
Only 6 European countries have a higher GDP than the US's poorest state, and none are close to the US GDP. And the US GDP has grown significantly faster than Europe's since the 1980's.
I don't consider my state that rich, but we're 4 places above Germany.
GDP divided by # of people doesn't accurately reflect quality of life... Especially when a good portion of GDP is derived from resources, and not necessarily spread to the population.
There's plenty of indexes that offer better insight.
Even indexes that do rate the US highly, generally weight income highly. In life expectancy, health, education, and metrics which don't take into account income, the US doesn't do great.
