> Socialism is the government providing goods and services, which requires coercion. No, this is flat out wrong, on so many levels. First, this is not what so

> Socialism is the government providing goods and services, which requires coercion. No, this is flat out wrong, on so many levels. First, this is not what socialism is. Go read a few books on the matter, a ton have been written. The short of it is that the focus of socialism is workers and them owning the means of production. Historically socialism has been about fighting against the (existing) government for that, and replacing the traditional power structures (e.g. the soviets/workers councils that popped up in Russia). Second, a government providing services is called common sense and is a component of everything outside of (very specific types of) anarchy. Goods is another matter. > Free market means voluntary exchanges Depends on one's interpretation. E.g. there's a drastic power imbalance in the vast majority of labour relations. That's why there have been so many regulations to restrict the abuses resulting from that imbalance. So an absolutely free market does have a significant involuntary component to it (child/dangerous/very long labour).