All due respect to my dear libertarian friends Iain and Andrew, not to mention P.J., but just for the record the free market is not “just a measurement.” It is surely a measurement as P.J. says, but “just”? Please. The free market also has a lot to do with liberty, justice, inalienable rights and all sorts of other entirely non “culty” things that I think are very important, perhaps just as important as the empircal value of markets in setting prices and whatnot.