I find your exchange of comments very nice because it so perfectly illustrates a pet peeve of mine.<p>The assumption &quot;free market = good&quot; is so widely spread and deeply rooted that anything which is identified as &quot;bad&quot; is then assumed to be against &quot;the free market&quot;, when really, it is often perfectly aligned with &quot;the free market&quot;, and the truth is that &quot;free market = good&quot; is naive. Free markets have good and bad sides; the good tends to significantly outweigh the bad, but unless you recognize that there is some bad in there as well, you&#x27;re not going to end up with a very good policy mix.<p>One can try to excuse the naive way of thinking by pretending that one is merely using a shorthand, but really, I&#x27;m doubtful that that&#x27;s anything more than an excuse.