Friedman makes a couple of important points: a special interest is a special interest, whether it's a business or not, and just because a police is good for--i.e., creates rents for--a specific industry or a specific business doesn't mean it's consistent with free enterprise. Also, it's easy to see the trouble and suffering of the steel worker who loses his or her job. It's much more difficult to consider the innovations and increases in standards of living we sacrifice in order to protect jobs in specific industries.
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. -Adam Smith
