The free market is not a god to be worshipped

In The Sequester's Market Utopians Adam Gopnik argues that the free market is not a god to be worshipped but a tool to be used when it works. He argues that some services (e.g. health, opera, the US Postal Service) are not best left to the markets. He makes this great point:

Society is about running at a loss, because profit and loss are, above all, human terms to be given a human measure. Societies run at a loss so that their citizens can live at a profit, in productive comfort.