The issue with free markets is that they tend not to stay free for very long. Efficiencies of scale cause monopolies and before you know it self-organizing coop

The issue with free markets is that they tend not to stay free for very long. Efficiencies of scale cause monopolies and before you know it self-organizing cooperatives, open source software and anything else you can think of that doesn't directly benefit what few winners have resulted from unfettered capitalism cease to exist. Like you, I'm a Capitalist with a big C. However, I do see it takes some rigorous government intervention to keep free (ish) markets free (ish). If you want to call that government intervention "socialism" then, sure, go ahead, but I'm pretty damn sure evidence points to big C capitalism never having worked as well as it did between 1950 and 1980 in the "western world" where every government, including the US, did its damnedest to keep the capitalists in check to make sure the market would stay as free as possible. Marx was right. The free market is inherently self-destructive. But it the 100 years since the communist manifesto smart people have figured out ways around that.