I agree “free market” today is insane. Initially the federal governments only source of revenue was tariffs, so it would protect domestic production. This makes the US independent and wealthy.
You can’t have an international “free market” system unless you don’t want to protect domestic production. Which imo is what the US did starting in the 70s until today.
Dear reader, this was not true in any shape.
The self-interest of each human being, his continual search for whatever he wants, is a natural law. Governments can make it difficult for him, but their roadblocks only cause him to seek other avenues in order to get what he wants.
As a result, the General Market will always triumph eventually whenever there's a conflict between consumer desires and government interference. And it's vitally important to understand this. For it's the reassertion of the market's sovereignty as the ruler of the world that's causing today's economic upheavals."
- Harry Browne 1974 (but just as relevant today).
> The self-interest of each human being, his continual search for whatever he wants, is a natural law.
It also seems to place the government in direct opposition with the wants of consumers, without acknowledging at all the fact that markets are just as often made unfree by the actions of its private actors.
Example please.
Since this is HN though maybe these will ring a bell :
* Intel's rebate program (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2010/08/...) which ended up with a $1.2B payment to AMD
* Microsoft's notorious antitrust case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....)
* AT&T abusing its monopoly status and being broken up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._AT%26T)
Honestly this is such an obvious notion that the fact that you're asking for examples is suspect on its own.
If anything, the more something resembles a "free market", the worse it is - you don't think Intel wouldn't poison the water supply if it juiced the Q4 earnings?
It's always more economical to just dump the toxic waste into the local river. If anything these subsidies even the playing field for people who don't think that's a good idea.