I love this article so much. > People like to use the term free market to describe the optimal market system, but that's pretty lousy terminology. The truth is

I love this article so much. > People like to use the term free market to describe the optimal market system, but that's pretty lousy terminology. The truth is, functioning markets are not "free" at all. They are regulated. Unregulated markets rapidly devolve into monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, and, if things get really bad, libertarianism. Yes, yes, this 1000x yes. Every time someone on HN or Reddit blithely assumes deregulation will solve everything, I want to forcibly point out that the most important word in "free market", is not "free", it's "market". A free market operates within a structure that must be created and maintained not using the properties of the market itself. If you don't have anything with more power than the market maintaining the market, before long you don't have a market. And once you don't have a market, you don't have "free" either. There's a reason professional sports matches have referees on the field. You need a structure more powerful than the game to preserve the game.