Comment by fc417fc802
3 hours ago
Most of the things you list don't make a market non-free. A free market can still have government regulation and distortion. In fact it requires it otherwise it will be captured by large players in short order and become non-free as a result.
The insulin example I agree is non-free. More generally the entire medical sector is only somewhat free. However I'm not sure that's a bad thing given the stakes and the history of the free market as it applies to healthcare. The medical establishment itself is an only barely disguised guild system after all.
> A free market can still have government regulation and distortion.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/free-market?q=free+market
> an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
By definition, free markets do not have government regulation. If you have an alternative definition of “free market” please feel free to share it.
I think you're misinterpreting the intent of what you quoted. I also think the phrasing of that definition is quite sloppy, being prone to exactly the sort of misunderstanding we see here.
For a market to be stable, fair, and free of monopolies government intervention is required. I don't think that fact is at all controversial. So already the definition you've quoted there has, if read literally, set up a scenario that is impossible to realize.
A free market is one where regulations are broad and are applied to the players evenly. A subsidy that applies to a sector as a whole (ex solar panels) is an example of such.
Many of the agricultural subsidies are much more targeted than that. However the regulator needs to maintain the stability of the entire system as a whole, and to that end food is not some luxury good that can be subject to shortages without major consequences. A tradeoff has to be made, either for more market regulation or significantly less market stability. Market participants in danger of starvation not known for exhibiting reasonable, well thought out behavior.
Similar to free speech, the free market is better seen as a vague guiding ideal rather than an absolute and objective description of a system. It's illegal in the US to make credible threats of violence towards someone. Can that fact be taken on its own to mean that we don't enjoy freedom of speech?
> A free market can still have government regulation and distortion
The question is "how much" rather than a binary consideration. With the size of the government in most countries, we are way past what would be considered a marginal influence.