[joshuamorton]

To add, Adam Smith's original postulation of a free market was an explicitly regulated market (for example to prevent monopoly influence).

There are all sorts of ways we aren't in that world (for example a free market requires a fully informed set of buyers, which practically speaking never exists).

[ucaetano]

Exactly! Free market != laissez faire.

But a market where exorbitant costs of regulation drive up the minimum efficient scale to the point that no new entrants are possible is also not a free market.