“Free markets” do not exist nor work. Period.

Without regulatory control, they become rapidly captured by capital interests that push anticompetitive practices to tie up the market.

To prevent this, all societies, to some degree or another, impose regulations on the markets. They do so in a variety of ways for a variety of philosophical reasons and to varying degrees of success, but there exists no free market anywhere and never could. A truly “free” market would immediately be captured and exploited.

All modern countries but for a few theocracies and authoritarian states function on fundamental principles from socialism, not “capitalism”. Even the ones that claim to be fundamentally Liberal or capitalist are still perfectly happy removing property from a person for the public good – proving there is no fundamental belief in private property – and will follow policies that may harm individuals but benefit the overall social good. And this is good and proper, because these truly “capitalist” principles cannot work in practice.

Let me just repeat for emphasis: free markets do not, have never, and could never actually exist. They just can’t and don’t. It’s preposterous to pursue them. But it IS possible for a socialist to make use of property leases – which look and feel the same as private property but aren’t – and markets to exchange them to give you something that “feels” like a free market but is actually just socialism.