That wasn't the proposal, the proposal was to enforce better information availability to consumers by displaying the owners of the brand prominently.

IANANC but my understanding is that a true market is two-sided: it requires informed consumers. Initiatives that bolster the buyer-side of the market aren't anti-market.

Calling a newly proposed regulation "pro free market" legislation is a little orwellian.

How free is a monopolized market? If a regulation outlaws monopolies, does it improve or impede the market's freedom?

Regulations that improve market efficiency are good. Regulations that impede efficiency are bad. In practice, we do need regulations because real-world actors are not optimal rational agents.

I can see it from that point of view. I purposely don't use the phrase "free market" though, because I don't share the assumption that complete freedom is what leads to an efficient, well functioning market. There is all sorts of manipulation that is required for a "good" market, i.e. one that fulfills the goal of efficient allocation of goods.

The most basic is the enforcement of contracts, which I think everyone agrees on.

But regulations about truth in advertising fit in there too. Lists of ingredients and nutritional information on packaging are an onerous regulation that allow consumers to make better informed choices (and so lead IMO to a "better" market). (I think brand ownership transparency is close philosophically to requiring ingredients on food products.) There are many examples of regulations that promote market efficiency, which sellers don't like because they may have been making profits from the inefficiency, or from information asymmetry.

There are of course regulations which degrade market efficiency too, either by regulatory capture or ill-thought out "consumer protection" like price controls, rent control, etc.

My overall point is that the assumption that a market with the fewest controls is de-facto the "best" market should be examined closely - manipulations of the market (whether by regulation, taxes, etc.) should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis based on whether they promote or degrade market efficiency.

Okay. How about pro-efficient markets? Because certainly markets completely unrestrained leads to rent seeking.

The orwellianism already exists in the technical definition of "free market". The proposed regulation would be anti-lassiez-faire, but pro-free-market, to use the terminology that economists have pushed.

> better information availability to consumers

Devil's advocate...

Brands can be a mnemonic that helps customers quickly recall relative quality experienced in previous purchases. This may vary across brands, and my experiences with Dove soap don't tell me anything about my experiences with Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Brands are often silly and misleading and I try to avoid them, but they aren't inherently malicious by default.

Any medium that can manipulate can also inform.

Yes, exactly - informed consumers are one of the requirements for a free market. Agents cannot act rationally when information is obscured.

In this case, the information is technically available but obscured such that consumers cannot make educated purchasing decisions without expending an irrational amount of time... thereby reducing supply-side competition.

Even if the information was available, most consumers don't study the entire supply chain of a product or service. We trust legislation to keep poisons out of our foods and punish cartels.

Smith's original phrasing wasn't "free market" it was "freely competitive market". They're very different concepts.

Depends on how you view “free market.” Some would say that, for a free market to work at all, you need informed choice on the side of consumers. Transparent branding would definitely be included in that.