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Young Washingtonians are pissed off.

Though we've made incredible gains as a society, far too many people are being denied access to jobs, healthcare, even affordable housing. We need to tear down what's broken in our politics. We need to destroy the barriers standing in the way of a better world.

What if the answer to so many of our challenges actually lies in the very thing so many consider a major source of our problems? What if free markets did more than fill our Amazon carts? What if markets improved everything?

Free markets lift people out of poverty by providing incentives for hard work and service. But as millions of workaholic Millennials fighting burnout will attest, being well-off isn't the same thing as being well. Sure, free markets gave us Peloton and keto pizza, but do they really make us healthier?

Free markets have already helped humanity conquer some of our most daunting health and wellness challenges, connecting billions of people with affordable food, clean drinking water, and life-saving medical equipment. Since 1776, with the rise of free market capitalism in Europe and America, global life expectancy has gone from 29 years to more than 70.

Free markets are currently causing competition to fight one of our most pressing challenges – COVID-19. More than 100 companies are testing a vaccine that could end suffering and return normal life.

While we all stay at home to prevent the spread, free markets have destroyed boredom with constant innovation and variety.

In the United States, the average work week has plummeted from 61 hours in 1870 to less than 35 hours today. Americans now spend almost one-third of our waking hours relaxing. And the reason, in a word, is markets. Not only did free markets make our work more productive, they forced employers to compete. As a result, companies and bosses started offering better pay, shorter days, and, in the modern era, opportunities for time-saving remote work. Since 1950, global per capita work has decreased 17%, from 2,227 hours a week to 1,855. During that same period, inflation-adjusted income has increased 111%. That means on average we are earning twice as much while working significantly less.

Meantime, if you want to destroy air pollution, for the last two decades your car of choice has been the Toyota Prius. We can thank the free market for that. Companies did not build their hybrids to meet arbitrary government targets. Politicians changed their regulations to acknowledge the new reality created by the market.

And it's hard to imagine a tougher and more persistent problem than hunger. But the progress we have made in just a few hundred years is nothing short of astonishing. From 1800 to 2010 the price of wheat fell more than 88%. During the same period, the share of the world's population living in so-called "absolute poverty," surviving in the shadow of starvation, has fallen from 94% to just 9.6%.

So, you can eat thanks to the free market – but can you afford to live?

Seattle rents are skyrocketing and calls for rent control as a solution are abundant. But in Tokyo, home prices have remained relatively stable for 25 years. One major reason is markets. With essentially no rent controls and very few restrictions on height and density, Tokyo is the rare city where supply can respond to demand.

Tokyo approves two "housing starts"-new residential construction projects-for everyone in New York City. That's why the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo was less than $1,000 per month as recently as 2018-less than half the cost of the same apartment in Seattle.

Free markets are the most radical, revolutionary force for change humanity has ever discovered. And the reason is simple. Free markets are nothing more and nothing less than each of us having the right to try our best at improving everything for each other.

-Cargill is the director of Washington Policy Center's "Free Markets Destroy" campaign. Online at freemarketsdestroy.com.