> A free market is merely one that is not regulated by the state
No, a free market explicitly applies only to well-regulated markets, as per the very creator of the word. It doesn’t matter what regulates the market, but for all practical purposes it will be the government(s). And this is the reason why European markets are often “more free” per several metrics.
A good analogy to this topic would be sport competitions. A free market is a fair, say running, race. But an anticompetitive/too large company exerting its power in different segments would be akin to someone tying the other racer’s shoes together (but I wouldn’t put past the analogy even shooting the others)
But that doesn't exist either, as the state sets the rules for businesses (what tarrifs apply on which goods, what property is protected, what barrier are set for entry, etc.) and is also potentially a major client of the market, deciding which services is chosen based on state's own criteria.
This is true in just the same way that a free society would have no have no government at all. No taxes, no laws, no police or judiciary, just complete freedom to do whatever you want to your neighbors.
It's almost as if the people who think absolute capitalistic libertarianism is a good idea always think that they'll be on the good side of it and get to reap the benefits of being a monarchical overlord and not the bad side of it where their organs are being sold overseas for a week's worth of food credits for the rest of their starving family.
It seems clear to me that was is meant is a perfectly competitive market, because according to basic welfare economics, that is the set of conditions under which a free market will lead to socially optimal outcomes. Aside from very hardcore non-aggression principle absolutists and sheer nihilists who are just rich and don't give a shit if the rest of society suffers, that tends to be the argument for why a society should be more capitalistic and have liberal markets. The further we get from those conditions, the less the argument holds.
And, of course, welfare economics itself is just a mathematical model. Whether it really holds true empirically is hard to tell given the impossibility of society-wide RCTs and enormous confounders when trying to compare across time and space.
