It's easy to tally up the greatness of the free market when you redefinento boundaries of society to exclude the huge negative costs imposed on slaves and laborers.
Um... I agree the word "free" is misleading but once you're in a legal system that condones slavery then of course it would be a free market. I'm having a hard time imagining the slave trade arising without a market much more free than the people forced through it.
Markets are amoral. That's why we shouldn't rely on them to solve social problems.
Couldn’t it just be a coincidence that the most recent wealthy societies are the wealthiest societies in history, and they also tend to claim to adhere to “free markets” ideas? The wealth could actually be caused by compounding benefits of technology or even exploitation of other societies, and may have little to do with how their public schools describe their economic system in middle school civics courses.
It's easy to tally up the greatness of the free market when you redefinento boundaries of society to exclude the huge negative costs imposed on slaves and laborers.