The problem is that libertarians will use the ideal about free markets to oppose any sort of sane regulation or discussion about the limits of the market. I would say markets in the US are rigged in many obvious ways, due to the outsized influence of business in American elections and the political system. So much of business regulations in the US is written by people from the very same business and people who oversee the markets are often from the same industry they are supposed to regulate and go to fat jobs in the industry after they have done the bidding of the industry in the public sector. Whether it is Tesla, broadband, telecoms or utilities you see the established players effectively block new entrants with all their political connections.

Just look at the ridiculous situation with patents, trademarks and copyrights. All of them have long outgrown their original intention and has been so amplified and extended that they can be used to very effectively kill all smaller competition and milk consumers dry.

The argument that government is horrible has been used effectively again and again to make government horrible. Is has been stripped of cash to work effectively and become completely dependent on largess from the private enterprise to function. That attracts the most rotten people as politicians, thus ensuring that government never looks good. The last thing these people want is a well functioning government.

Pragmatically I'm not a libertarian, though I believe anarchism to be the most moral political philosophy. In practice I lean far left of most people.

What I wanted to stop was this demonization of "the free market" and its wholesale "what would libertarians say nonsense" because it ignorantly ignores the nuances of the political philosophy and unfairly demonizes an economic system that is responsible for a lot of good things.

The issue with patents, well, that's an example of the government failing. Not the market.

It's so true. I have been places where governments were more effective and efficient than in the us ... Worshipping the idea that "governments can never do anything right" seems to be a self-fulfilling proposition in a democracy ...

>If you live in the West you live in a free market right now.

> nobody (in) civilization has really ever lived under what is technically a free market.

So, we do or we don't?

You do live in a free market. You don't live in a free market by a definition including no interference from government. But that's a dumb and useless definition so it's tossed out here.

"A free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority."

Most, if not all Western countries are not free markets. They are often partially free, but definitely not completely free. And there are very few countries in the world right now, if any, which have a free market.

So no, he doesn't live in a free market.

The definition is too stringent to be useful, and I made note of the Wikipedia definition (because I knew people would google search "what is a free market" to look up the definition since they don't know it) and already gave at least a partial explanation as to why I disregard that aspect of the definition. It's a useless definition, it's like having a philosophical discussion with a solipist.