The downside of the free market? It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want.

Danger, Danger! Wikiquote patch ahead. I needed to check a quote of Milton Friedman's which took me to the Wikiquote page. Friedman is particularly dangerous because he was such a wonderful wordsmith with such a knack for translating complex ideas into accessible statements of eminent common sense. The quote I was seeking was:

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
- Ch. 1 "The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom", 2002 edition, page 15 in Capitalism and Freedom

But you can't stop there. Or at least I can't. Here are some other selections.

The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.
- Ch. 1 "The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom", 2002 edition, page 15 in Capitalism and Freedom

[snip]

Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion—the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary co-operation of individuals—the technique of the market place.
- Ch. 1 "The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom" in Capitalism and Freedom

[snip]

The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
- Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", page 13 of Free to Choose

[snip]

The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.
- America's Drug Forum Interview

[snip]

The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.

[snip]

The problem in this world is to avoid concentration of power - we must have a dispersion of power.

[snip]

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

[snip]

Society doesn't have values. People have values.

[snip]

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

[snip]

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

[snip]

Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, set forth a hypothesis which was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!

[snip]

There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

[sni]

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.