Robert Solow and Douglass North present what Arnold Kling calls the dark view, that free markets are not natural. As North puts it:
The economic interests are the elites that produce economic activity. But they tend to support political groups that, in turn, will protect them from too much competition. The interplay is the elites in the political world protecting the economic elites from too much competition and giving them monopolies, while on the other hand the economic elites provide the funds that support the political elites. And the interplay is all over Latin America. It’s a disease, but it’s a disease that is a natural thing and it’s very hard to get rid of.