> Absent negative externalities or monopoly effects, a man receives from the free market what he gives to it,

Naive almost doesn’t capture the essence of this for me… Willful blindness maybe? I’m a pretty free market kind of guy, not because I believe it is the ultimate expression of human morality, but because I think for most industries it produces the best practical results of the various economic systems that have been tried at scale. But, here on this particular planet, negative externalities and monopolies are ubiquitous. I don’t get how people can’t see that. I also came from a poor background - by USA standards anyway - but found financial success in my adult life, so maybe that has something to do with it?