Friedman treated markets as proportional representation for consumer preferences.

Evidence

In the market, “each man can vote” “for the color of tie he wants and get it; he does not have to see what color the majority wants and then, if he is in the minority, submit.” “The ballot box,” he wrote, “produces conformity without unanimity; the marketplace, unanimity without conformity.” — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets, 130

Categorization

• CANDY: The tie-color example is a clean shorthand joke for why market fans distrust majoritarian democracy.
• XREF: connects to: Friedman redefined economics’ goal from welfare maximization to freedom maximization. — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets: A Global History…, 118