Citation needed

The spectacular performance of the US economy, 1800 to the present, relative to countries with varying levels of socialism. The poor performance of socialist industries in the US. The failure of any socialist/communal agricultural system to produce enough food to feed itself. (Even the Soviets gave up on collective farms.)

Was the market in 19th century America truly free?

http://histsociety.blogspot.com/2013/12/why-were-tariffs-pol...

Was it a perfect free market? Nope. Nothing human is perfect. But it was a workable approximation of one.

This isn’t a moral judgment. But a market propped up with strong tariffs is by definition not a free market. The American economy you’re lauding was a mixed economy.

You can't make water 100% pure, either. That doesn't mean you're not drinking water.

Your claim that it must be perfect to be considered a free market is argumentative, not substantive.

Ha-Joong Chang might disagree[0], but okay I’ll dodge the No True Scotsman accusation.

What’s your definition of free market, then?

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/ha-joon-...

It consists of transactions among freely consenting adults that do not use force or fraud.

Sounds like that's compatible with the German social market, or Nordic social democracy. Or even the protectionist Asian Tiger states.

The law is use of force. Examples: setting wages, employment terms, price setting, quotas for women on corporate boards, etc.

Protectionism isn't free market, either.

You've just mentioned activities an employer (or government) does.

Market doesn't do any of these. Prices or wages do not set themselves "because market wills it". They are set because people will not accept a different outcome. If the employer is stubborn and there are few other options, nobody can really drive the wages up.

Taking anot market is like talking about evolution. It is not even a force, just a label for emergent behavior.

So the market is as free as people are, and the main damper are actually mobility and debt. People who cannot move are limited to local market which can have a very different equilibrium. People who are in debt are forced to take immediately available offers.

And finally, a typical person cannot outwit or outwait a corporation, much less government.

Information asymmetry and availability of various instruments of pressure is vastly different.

By the way, corporate law and setting wages is also use of force. You do not get to really negotiate any of it from equal position. Likewise you are very limited in negotiating credit. The difference is, law is at least slightly transparent and corporate law is not.

So, where it's this "free" in the market?

Force: do this or I will beat you or kill you or imprison you

Not Force: do this or I won't give you something of mine

Also Force: do this or I will undercut you, bankrupt you, or sue you into oblivion

Suing is using force via the legal system. Undercutting someone is not. "bankrupting" someone depends on how they go about it.

The tariffs article literally describes the U.S. as very protectionist up until it implemented the income tax.

Power imbalance is ok though.

What can Bill Gates make you do?

That's just trade.