The Fallacy of the Free Market

The free market is a brilliant idea. It, and many ideas stemming from it, have garnered countless Nobel Prizes and helped earn fortunes a million times over. Basic supply and demand curves which you read about in your Intro to Economics class in high school paint a simple, pretty picture which shows how a free market through many individuals acting in their own interests can find a price and quantity output efficiency point for any good or service. Based on cost to supply and the demand to purchase prices and quantities will naturally negotiate through the actions of the buyers and sellers and arrive at the efficiency point. The free market has been essential in my understanding of the world as I use it, often daily, in decisions and conversations about business, politics, international relations, poverty, you name it.

The issue is that today the free market frequently becomes something associated with political parties, with one claiming to believe in the virtues of the free market and therefore against any sort of government regulation, while an opposing party will propose some sort of regulation and in turn be labelled a non-believer in free markets that hates capitalism.