• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    21 year ago

    That’s just flat-out wrong. I got this from Wikipedia, since it explains the concept in a pretty easy-to-understand way:

    “(Free) markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations.”

    Free markets remove all corporate regulations, and allow for companies to do whatever they want, including using predatory pricing against the competition to run them out of business and create a monopoly, or price fixing, working together with competition to ensure they both get inflated profits at the expense of the consumers. Any regulation that currently keeps companies in check, however poorly it works, would be completely removed if a free market is adopted.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      01 year ago

      Do you actually believe that though? Think about it. Would a lack of regulations really prevent monopolies, or would it enable them? And is a market that has been captured by monopolies “free”?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        11 year ago

        It’s free from regulations. That’s why it’s called that. It’s not about freedom for consumers, it’s about the ability for companies to freely influence the market without worrying about silly things like ethics and fairness. Lack of regulation would enable monopolies, correct; that’s what a free market would do. We need a regulated market, which - as I explained in the last post - is the opposite of a free market, in order to allow for regulations that prevent monopolies.

        Currently, we have an effectively free market in the US. The regulations we have put in place are dysfunctional at best and completely broken at worst, which is what is currently allowing companies to form effective monopolies and benefit from slave and child labor. We have far too few real, impactful regulations, and half the US population thinks we need even fewer.