I'm so tired of people who don't know what "free market" means making up their own definition and then saying it's a bad thing.
A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc.
If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market.
Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.
A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc.
If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market.
Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.