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The problem is that a lot of people spouting "free market" demagoguery don't practice your definition. Rather, it is indeed "anything and everything they can get away with".

There is also strong correlation with people intent on telling other people how to live their lives. (Even and all the more so when this ends up through revelations and evidence being a "do as I say, not as I do" type of message.)

One of my problems with so-called "free marketeers", is that so many of them are outright hypocrites.

Sigh. Trending too far towards the political, here on HN. But people, including many technical people, need to look at, analyze, and take apart free market arguments and statements, to see what parts are true and/or work and what parts don't.

I myself favor broadly but fairly strictly defining spaces and rules within which private enterprise can compete relatively freely. But, private enterprise does not become the final arbiter of same.

That's what studies I recall seem to have indicated. Regulation works well in broad strokes. It falls down in micro-management. But you paint those strokes strongly, and you don't let the competitors step an inch over that line without consequences. (Even if, sometimes, the consequences are a re-evaluation and adjustment of the regulation. Sometimes, the times really do change.)

If you let private enterprise loose entirely, you end up enabling the eventual establishment of quasi-states -- perhaps to eventually become de facto or real states. Autocratic states, by the nature of their structure.

I'm not sure we really want, or are willing to concede to the inevitability of, a Gibsonian near-future. Yet.

As for the regulation. It should all be open. With the world an ever shrinking place, private actions simply are no longer isolated. When company X pollutes watershed Y, it's no longer just a matter of their bottom line. Even in resulting settlements, court procedures, and arbitration, non-disclosure should not be a legal option for them. Shine the light of day on these bad actors. And shine it on government failures that enabled them.

A bit idealistic. But, IMO, better than "all hail free markets".

P.S. If you think markets are free, try following jobs across national boundaries. There is no worldwide "free market" in labor. (Something a bit less obvious to the highly skilled than to the rest of the world labor force.)