[Mononokay]

America doesn't have a free market - there are too many regulations and laws around it for it to be so.

Look at Bell for an example of how it absolutely isn't a free market.

[cup-of-tea]

Some regulations make the market less free, some make it more free. Many free markets degrade into oligopolies and eventually monopolies unless they are regulated.

Free market economics is something you learn on the first day of economic theory. But then you very quickly learn that they don't actually exist or if they did exist would be very bad for us (due to high external costs etc.) In what market do consumers really have perfect knowledge? Which markets really have no barriers to entry? Some economists argue that the existence of marketing and advertising immediately defeats any hope of a free market.

[nerdymanchild]

Why is a working free market predicated on consumers having perfect knowledge? Free != Efficient

[cup-of-tea]

That's just the definition of free market. How can it be be free if the consumers don't have perfect knowledge?

[nerdymanchild]

Because most people allowed to own property, run a business, and offer products and services?

[nerdymanchild]

The claim that we live in a free market system is not the same as the claim we live in absolutely free market system.