There are only a finite number of people in the world. So even if all of them knew how to program, a task requiring 10 billion programmers would have a supply shortage. Therefore, the statement "there cannot be a shortage of programmers" is false. Therefore, the market for programmers cannot be a free market.
BTW, I still agree with you that it's "pretty free." And I definitely agree with you that it's generally possible to find qualified programmers. I've never tried to hire and not found at least one qualified candidate that wanted to do the job, mainly by being honest about how our offer stacks up against the others. If we can't pay enough to hire an expert, we hire a potential expert that would take the wage and train them. The lower the wage, the longer we are going to have to train them.
But there's still a difference between "a pretty darn free market" and "the living avatar of the ideal free market," which is what it sounded like you were trying to assert. :)
BTW, I still agree with you that it's "pretty free." And I definitely agree with you that it's generally possible to find qualified programmers. I've never tried to hire and not found at least one qualified candidate that wanted to do the job, mainly by being honest about how our offer stacks up against the others. If we can't pay enough to hire an expert, we hire a potential expert that would take the wage and train them. The lower the wage, the longer we are going to have to train them.
But there's still a difference between "a pretty darn free market" and "the living avatar of the ideal free market," which is what it sounded like you were trying to assert. :)