Freedom and a free market are virtues to be strived for, not a description of the current system in the USA. What we have is best described as a mixed economy

Freedom and a free market are virtues to be strived for, not a description of the current system in the USA. What we have is best described as a mixed economy (like China's, just with a different mix of market and state that leans more towards market than China does), with an unhealthy dose of corporate regulatory capture. Regardless of whether you're on team "big government" or team "free market", I'm pretty sure we're all quite dissatisfied with a big government that's largely captured and controlled via a revolving door between the powerful regulatory agencies and entrenched international corporations that have weaponized regulatory agencies as a business "moat" against competition. Again, regardless of whether you're team "big government" or team "free market", it seems a vast majority of politically conscientious people ought to be opposed to such revolving doors, corporate capture, and money in politics in general. It's deeply regrettable that even in a Democracy, positions of power have a tendency to attract people who are drawn to power, who seem to be some of those least inclined to wield it cautiously and responsibly. I haven't exactly figured out a solution, but I wouldn't be opposed in a strictly conceptual sense (e.g. not agreeing to a specific implementation without considerable discussion / peer review) to restricting voting to 1. People with a stake in the future stability and strength of the whole system (land owners? people who've had children? not sure what the right mechanism here is, but the litmus test is a provably vested interest in the success of the whole system on a long time horizon) and/or 2. People who are civically engaged enough to even be familiar with the process of government (civics test? I know in the past these have been abused to facilitate discrimination - I just have a hard time believing that our species is incapable of devising a knowledge-based litmus test that isn't being deliberately used to facilitate discrimination). and/or 3. More mature people: Raising the age of majority in general from 18 to [21-25], including voting age. We know the prefrontal cortex plays an important role in making good, responsible decisions by weighing long term consequences, and it's not done developing until mid-late 20s. That said, it would be a politicized act to change voting age but not lawful firearm ownership age based on this concept, or vice versa. The politically neutral and principal-based solution here is to just raise the age of majority across the board to more accurately reflect our improved understanding of the nature of human brain development.