i guess in my mind, the less a government meddles with the market, the better. Unless it’s with the intention of eliminating scams and enforcing fairness in the buying and selling process - regardless of race or your status.
But i do agree that in practice, we rarely see governments try a truly free market.
I believe corruption is an inherent feature of a system that lets individuals acquire outsized proportions of wealth.
Even if the market was initially completely free, as soon as anybody reaches the threshold of being able to bribe/lobby decision makers to tilt the market in their favor, that's what's gonna happen.
To me, a free market is at best an unstable temporary state - not something you can plan societies around.
The less the government meddles the better – except for at least two very deep classes of meddling? I mean I definitely agree that society should protect what you mention - so maybe the “free market” frame isn’t really useful enough.
I’m mainly against the term because it’s a banner idea of the neoliberal revolutionaries that got us into a lot of these messes, by crushing collective action and giving so much power to capital. Actually existing “free markets” are a big part of the positive feedback system of capital accumulation.
The meddling i suggest is merely to make the market fair. It removes bad actors that are intentionally trying to hurt true price discovery.
Someone selling a home with major issues, and trying to hide those issues for passing inspection, is clearly just a scammer.
So yes - i’m talking about a free market where there are honest actors. Not completely free. I do see the difference, but that’s splitting hairs imo.