Freedom refers to a potentiality. You are conflating a potential (freedom) for a hoped-for benefit (highly competitive). A free market is a means towards a competitive market because it lowers the artificial barriers to entry into the market. Those barriers imposed by the universe simply are and while we can invest into R&D and education, market forces cannot change the laws of physics.
> A free market is a means towards a competitive market because it lowers the artificial barriers to entry into the market. Those barriers imposed by the universe simply are...
Are you talking about tariffs or about banning the sale of semiconductor equipment to China, so they can't compete in the market for high performance chips? Is that "a means towards a competitive market" or is it "barriers imposed by the universe"?
High barriers to entry have nothing to do with free markets.
>In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers.
This is an overly simplistic view of what "free market" means in practice. The most obvious issue is that, in a free market economy, government protects private property, ensuring that any capitalistic definition of "free market" does, in fact, require government intervention into the expression of supply and demand.
And now that we've established that capitalism necessitates government intervention, capitalism is incompatible with such a simple definition of "free market." We can begin negotiating just how much government interference in the market is allowed before it's no longer a free market, but it's categorically impossible for a capitalistic free market to be pure expression of supply and demand.
anon291|3 months ago
bigbadfeline|3 months ago
And tariffs and sanctions refer to what?
> A free market is a means towards a competitive market because it lowers the artificial barriers to entry into the market. Those barriers imposed by the universe simply are...
Are you talking about tariffs or about banning the sale of semiconductor equipment to China, so they can't compete in the market for high performance chips? Is that "a means towards a competitive market" or is it "barriers imposed by the universe"?
That's an interesting universe you live in.
lotsofpulp|3 months ago
>In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
As long as a buyer and seller can negotiate whatever number they want, or walk away, it is a free market.
MostlyStable|3 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market#Low_barriers_to_en...
KPGv2|3 months ago
And now that we've established that capitalism necessitates government intervention, capitalism is incompatible with such a simple definition of "free market." We can begin negotiating just how much government interference in the market is allowed before it's no longer a free market, but it's categorically impossible for a capitalistic free market to be pure expression of supply and demand.