Many different goals can potentially be achieved by different means. Specifically, they can either be accomplished through government programs and regulations, or through the free market.
In the free market, human interaction is voluntary. People freely choose to trade when they believe it to be in their interests. Violence is forbidden, and may be resisted if attempted.
Government programs are necessarily based on coercion. They require the threat of violence to force people to comply with them.
This would seem to be a strong moral argument in favor of the free market. This essay will bypass the question of morality, however, and instead economically analyze the question of which type of solution is more effective.
The key difference between government and the free market is responsibility. That is, who bears the consequences of government or private actions?
In the free market, the consequences of actions are borne primarily by the actor himself. This is true of both positive and negative consequences. If a private interest uses its resources effectively, offering some product or service that benefits humanity, it can profit from its action. However, if it squanders its resources, it will experience losses.
Government programs are different. Because they are funded by taxes and based on force, they will exist whether or not people want them to exist. Those who create and staff them will not experience the consequences of their actions. This does not mean that the consequences will disappear. Instead, they will be borne by others who are not responsible for the creation of the program. Taxpayers will be forced to fund the program, and the program may create incentives that will have unexpected consequences for others.
In the free market, private interests must serve the customer to stay in business. The profit and loss system provides information to tell them how they are doing. The free market rewards success and discourages failure. In contrast, government programs can continue taking taxpayer money regardless of whether they succeed or fail. Without a profit and loss system, it may not be easy to tell whether a program is succeeding or not.
When a government program fails, it could have its budget cut, but actual experience shows that this is unlikely. More likely, it will be continued by politicians who refuse to admit failure, or for the benefit of its own employees, or because people see only some results of the program and not others. In the unlikely event that a government program succeeds, it risks having its budget cut as unnecessary. In any case, those responsible for the success are not rewarded as they would be in the free market.
Different incentives face people in the free market and government. In the free market, those who wish to succeed must please the customer. Government employees will continue to be paid regardless whether they are helpful or harmful. Thus government programs promote bad service and harmful results.
Different types of people are attracted to different types of jobs. Private entrepreneurs may be self-interested, but they must be willing to serve the customer to succeed. They must also be willing to take risks and possibly lose their jobs if they do not succeed. Government employees can count on being funded by the taxpayers regardless how well they do. Thus people who are less willing to work hard and effectively are attracted to such jobs.
In the free market, people can forcibly resist those who seek to use force to harm them. Government's near monopoly on force prevents people from resisting harm by government this way.
Democracy attempts to impose some consequences for government programs, but they are woefully inadequate. Politicians can lose their jobs, but this can occur regardless whether it is deserved. Politicians can enact policies that kill thousands of people and waste billions of dollars, but job loss is the worst consequence they are likely to face.
Again and again, the free market out-performs the government. There may be some functions that only the government can perform, but when there is a choice between a government and free market solution, the free market consistently works better.