There are free-ish markets in the same way there are prentant-ish women - you either are or you aren't. A free market is one where two entities trade freely, voluntarily, based on their best knowledge, and without coercion or force from any outside party. So, while they don't necessarily interfere, laws and regulations do coerce the trading parties into trading against their wishes, or prohibit them from trading entirely. One of the parties lying about the product, or holding a gun and saying "your money or your life," isn't a free market, either, since it is fraud/theft/crime, and the other party was coerced into trading something they normally wouldn't have. With those, we can discuss what kind of crime issues can arise, and how to deal with them, but not claim that "free markets don't work" because there are fraudulent exchanges, since, obviously, free, unregulated, unfettered trade happens all the time.



My concern is that when you start to protect people from assholes, you run into the issue of a nanny state having to rely on more and more restrictive protections, in order to deal with more and more clever thieves. And people assume that they are protected, so don't pay attention or do research, making it easier for thieves to get away with new ways of stealing from them. If people had to rely on their own research and knowledge before taking part in any trade, such assholery would be a lot harder to get away with. Plus assholes generally don't last in the market for very long, since, no one really buys stuff from assholes. They are assholes, after all (yes, I'm aware BFL somewhat flies in the face of this). Think of how many huge corps we have now who aren't assholes, like Apple, Google, Vanguard, Honda, and how many asshole companies have collapsed spectacularly once they were found out.


Here's a simple but interesting exercise. Can you name a monopoly, that isn't specifically a government agency, or is not something that is specifically mandated by government (like power companies in some places)?