Friedman's constant emphasis on choice was a refl ection of his approach; he sought to represent freemarket economists as possessors of respect for the manifest preferences of average consumers, and supporters of government intervention as paternalists imposing their beliefs on those less enlightened than themselves. He told Playboy that “what the critics really complain about” is “that under capitalism, consumers get what they want rather than what the critics think they should have.” Intellectuals were sympathetic to collectivism, he asserted, because it presented a social model in which they would have more power than they would under free enterprise.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 486