In addition to experiential feedback, valid knowledge, as we saw in Section 1, requires autonomy of thought (pp. 1.3:61-2). Human beings must be free to discover and test the truth for themselves; without such freedom, none of an individual's "knowledge" is reliable. In the light of this insight, the role of market product authorities, competing for credibility among consumers, should be contrasted with that of a compulsory consumer-regulation agency. Because the market's product authorities are freely selected by consumers, they are inherently more reliable from the consumer's perspective than would be any enforced authority.

The cognitive habits of consumers in the free market can also be expected to differ considerably from those of their counterparts in a regulated economy. Free-market consumers are responsible for their own decisions and therefore tend to develop an attitude of healthy skepticism from experience; in ethical terms, such an environment promotes the virtue of independence (cf. pp. 3.10:9-10). In contrast, the consumer in the regulated market tends to fancy himself or herself as immune from danger, since official authorities are assumed to provide full protection against harmful or inferior products. Over time, such consumers lose the habit of carefully examining their decisions, and their independent investigative skill declines. For this reason, consumers in a regulated market may be subject to special hazards. In recent years they have suffered from blood supplies tainted by HIV, meats tainted by bacteria, and buildings that collapsed prematurely in the face of hurricanes—each of these products having passed inspection by governmental authorities who were presumed infallible.