Do Scandinavian socialist democracies not count as an exception?
On the flip side, I think you will equally find that whenever free market solutions are applied to public services - healthcare, water, electricity, police, etc - people also die in large numbers. And although wealthy people generated by the free markets are philantropic, it's not in proportion to the harm inflicted on people. Only thing is, we ignore those disasters because they are inconvenient for the narrative.
It seems to be obvious that certain things (like public utilities) should just be controlled directly by the government, without any free markets involved, as long as your objective function is to optimize the average life quality of your citizens.
The closest I can think of are the metros of Tokyo free government takeover, but I am not sure how free those actually were of government regulation.
One of the struggles I have is that typically these public services may be carried out by private companies paid for by the government, but that is just begging for corruption
I never said we should do away with a market economy. All I said is that market economies are not guaranteed to converge to optimal or even good outcomes.
Markets CAN lead to horrifically bad equilibria (extreme inequality, financial crises, recessions, depressions, etc.). There are no guarantees that they won't.
So let's be humble, open-minded, willing to rely on markets when they work, willing to try other things when they don't.
Please don't attack a straw-man.