Edited sentence: Books by FA Hayek, and Milton Friedman cover the period substantially and give examples of rising tariffs and government intervention into the economy before and during the crisis...some of which created or even made the crisis worse.Criticism of points from the book:.Free markets niether require the literal definition or the economic definition to function properly.He gives no definition for what these means, thus lets the reader assume a literal definition.Stiglitz attributes the great depression to the failure of free markets and laissez-faire government.Stiglitz partially blames the Oligarchs of Russia for the failure of privatization even though privatization began in 1992 and the Oligarchs gained no major industry until 1996.Stiglitz states that free market advocates believe that there is always complete information and perfect competition.Stigtliz refers to his intellectual competition as Ideoluges, Fundamentalists, and part of the Washington Consensus.The IMF is generally viewed as the more Keynesian oritented international economic body (moreso than the World Bank or WTO).The Washington Consensus refers to a conspiracy theory developed by latin American's angry at liberalizing trade which they viewed as unfair as the United States maintained protective tariffs (hardly a free market oriented consensus) See The Commanding Heights by Joeseph Stanislaw and Daniel Yergin for more information.The asset stripping for which Stiglitz blames on the Oligarchs was in fact done by communist party leaders (See the Commanding Hieghts and Against the Dead Hand by Brink Lindsey for more information).Whether one believes this or not, the fact is, the government was intervening and the markets were not free