re: #7 Destro

You mistake capitalism with free market. It’s a common mistake - especially in America.

You’re right, I looked it up. I just wanted to take a poke at you—I don’t know squat about economics or anything that has to do with math, my mortal enemy).

Anyway, it’s all good as I learned something, namely that there’s an extremely useful site called Investopedia that not only defines, but also explains terms like “free market” in clear language that people (like me) without a business background can easily understand:

Free Market

Definition of ‘Free Market’
A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.

In financial markets, free market stocks are securities that are widely traded and whose prices are not affected by availability.

In foreign-exchange markets, it is a market where exchange rates are not pegged (by government) and thus rise and fall freely though supply and demand for currency.

Investopedia explains ‘Free Market’
In simple terms, a free market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is a voluntary agreement between two parties who trade in the form of goods and services. In reality, this is the extent to which a free market exists since there will always be government intervention in the form of taxes, price controls and restrictions that prevent new competitors from entering a market. Just like supply-side economics, free market is a term used to describe a political or ideological viewpoint on policy and is not a field within economics.

That last sentence that makes a distinction between politics/ideology and the actual science of economics is an important point, IMO.