The free market is such a beautiful theory that no proof is required. The free market can never fail, you see, it can only be failed. Thirty years of deregulation and regulatory capture led to economic disaster because the market just wasn't free enough.

That is seriously the argument some people make. I find it obnoxious and so trivially, obviously false it baffles me that people who are not rich actually make this argument.(1) I have trouble believing in a system which collapses at the slightest deviation from perfection.

(1) I can, however, easily see why an ethically challenged rich person would make such a self-serving argument. No, I don't think all or most rich people are ethically challenged. Certainly some are. I hate making so many caveats and having such a defensive tone in these footnotes, but I've argued on the internet before. It went okay.