I am ambivalent on the idea of a completely free market.
Because while I believe it would self-regulate, in a vacuum (or anarchic system), a free market paired with a government means interference, nepotism, laws that favour monopolies and kills competition.
So when people like Liz Truss enter 10 Downing Street and claim they want to enact "free market policies", the result is just utter economic upheaval and chaos that hurts regular people further.
Monopolies and collusion happen without government regulation, too. I find it best to think of markets as something which are free in the same sense that a helicopter is not currently crashing into the ground.
Economic upheaval in UK is not because 'free market policies', but because of Liz Truss's irresponsible fiscal policy during inflation times, which shows her (and her chancellor's) basic macroeconomic incompetence.
Business people and political leaders in the West are almost universally in favor of the free market. Until it turns out that said free market might mean they get the short end of the stick. That is to say less tax revenue or less profit. When that happens they suddenly insist there must be some of government intervention, otherwise they are too big to fail.
The problem of unbounded free speech is rectified by setting precedent that yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is obviously a criminal act. At least, it works this way in a common law nation like the US. This doesn't really cost anything, beyond criminal enforcement. The public good in this is obvious.
The rectification of free markets in the US somehow involves massive transfers of wealth to private companies from the public sphere. Essentially just to make sure those companies don't suffer an adverse effects from their bad decisions. I'm not sure what the utility to the public is in this. Do we really need companies that only exist because of government handouts. Why didn't we bail out Enron in that case? What about WorldCom? Or was their mistake just having a Canadian as a CEO?
Because while I believe it would self-regulate, in a vacuum (or anarchic system), a free market paired with a government means interference, nepotism, laws that favour monopolies and kills competition.
So when people like Liz Truss enter 10 Downing Street and claim they want to enact "free market policies", the result is just utter economic upheaval and chaos that hurts regular people further.