Not really, "free markets" are real, they exist. You find them in small villages all around the world, someone needs something that someone else has in abundan

Not really, "free markets" are real, they exist. You find them in small villages all around the world, someone needs something that someone else has in abundance, they make a deal. I buy quality lentils, rice, milk, cows, ... this way, as I live in Europe. In the US you can't even buy natural milk, they have germs paranoia, and lots of big corps's interests. Any person on the village could sell you anything, without any control, and that works, believe it or not. A free market is as simple as a market that meets certain criteria, like existence of competition. Regulated markets use to destroy competition. In the US competition in healthcare is not so good in this regard, but don't tell any American, they believe they live in the best country in the world, specially those that had never lived abroad. You could argue that perfect "free markets" do not exist, like a perfect "cube" or "rectangle" or "sphere" do not either. And that is true, because in the end atoms are just discrete approximations of a perfect shape, but cubes are very useful as a reference.