A bit of a quibble, since you seem to be equating Capitalism with "free markets" (but you put free markets in quotes, so perhaps you're intending sarcasm). In a

A bit of a quibble, since you seem to be equating Capitalism with "free markets" (but you put free markets in quotes, so perhaps you're intending sarcasm). In any case, for others reading: A "market" is any place people come to exchange goods and services, and seems to be a sociological Truth. They appear in nearly every society, going back thousands of years, even before written history. A "free market" is an academic ideal, where every actor in the market is perfectly rational, has complete information, and is not under any sort of coercion. This is, of course, impossible to achieve in practice, similar to solving a high school physics problem and ignoring friction. Capitalism, then, is a tool for exploiting those imperfections for your own gain. Using your wealth or power to coerce others, acting on hidden information, preying on peoples' insecurities through advertising, and so on. Capitalism is explicitly opposed to a free market, and continuously tries to undermine it, for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. The role of democratically-elected governments should be to represent the peoples' interests in the market, in opposition to the elites. Like you said, through regulations to protect the commons, prevent monopolies and other exploitation, and so on. The dilemma is that a weak government allows corporations and the wealthy to do whatever they want, and is powerless to stop it. A strong government can stop or slow their influence temporarily, but is also a jucier target for corruption. I don't know how we get to that, though. We've now had two generations awash in propaganda, that the free market is good and capitalism is synonymous with the free market, and that any problems you're facing aren't the fault of the wealthy and powerful, but are because of the minorities that can't defend themselves.