The universality of Friedman's belief in the effi cacy of free markets exceeded even that of the nineteenthcentury theorists whose legacy Hayek had spent the postwar years working to overcome. His was not a Spencerian or Sumnerian world in which free markets dealt crushing blows to some in order to contribute to the greater advancement of humanity. Rather, it was one in which incontrovertible benefi ts redounded, in a display of spectacular bounty, to people of all kinds and in all situations. He represented markets as an unremitting good.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 467