Free Market vs. What? (By Dustin)

It seems like solving the "common good" or "morally right" issues facing humanity is fundamentally affected by economics.  This is not deeply insightful as most individuals spend a great portion of their life dealing with money; making it, spending (rather for survival or entertainment), even losing it (Josh in Las Vegas).  However, economic systems are inhibiting even suppressive; they affect one ability to do good.

So, my questions: (1) is a "free market economy" more or less conducive to addressing issues like education, global warming/environment, and poverty or is a socialist economy with high levels of government involvement & control? Why?  (2) is there another economic system that would work? What is it?

To have a level playing field, lets define "free market economy".  The following is Wiki's definition;  I know its not scholarly but it works:

A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, in a free market environment buyers and sellers do not coerce or mislead each other nor are they coerced by a third party. [1] In the aggregate, the effect of these decisions en masse is described by the law ofsupply and demand. Free markets contrast sharply with controlled markets, in which governments directly or indirectly regulate prices or supplies, distorting market signals. [2] In the marketplace the price of a good or service helps to quantify its value to consumers and thus balance it against other goods and services. In a free market, this relationship between price and value is more clear than in a controlled market[citation needed]. Through competition between vendors for the provision of products and services, prices tend to decrease, and quality tends to increase. 

A free market is not to be confused with a perfect market where individuals have perfect information and there is perfect competition. Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which expands this environment by confining government intervention to market failures. Hence, with government force limited to a defensive role, government itself does not initiate force in the marketplace beyond levying taxes in order to fund the maintenance of the free marketplace. Some free market advocates oppose taxation as well, claiming that the market is better at providing all valuable services of which defense and law are no exception, and that such services can be provided without direct taxation. Anarcho-capitalists, for example, would substitute arbitration agencies and private defense agencies. While some economists regard the free market as a useful if simplistic model in developing economic policies to attain social goals, others regard the free market as a normative rather than descriptive concept, and claim that policies which deviate from the ideal free market solution are 'wrong' even if they are believed to have some immediate social benefit. 

In other words, a free market economy is "an economic system in which individuals, rather than government, make the majority of decisions regarding economic activities and transactions."[3] In social philosophy, a free market economy is a system for allocating goods within a society: purchasing power mediated by supply and demand within the market determines who gets what and what is produced, rather than the state. Early proponents of a free-market economy in 18th century Europe contrasted it with the medieval, early modern, and mercantilist economies which preceded it.