Free markets mean collusion and price fixing; I'd rather have a competitive market than a free one. Regulation is needed in any system; free markets aren't always competitive, and competitive markets aren't always free. I think the bigger issue is that every system requires regular maintenance, and we've dropped the ball on that for a long time; it's not as simple as saying "we need a freer market" because we wouldn't maintain it anyways. I think universal suffrage is the real problem, because those that don't contribute still get a say in how things run.
No, for most of the beginning of this country (until the 50s-60s) the economic regulations we had we reactions to bad actors in the market (e.g. anticompetitive actors, market manipulation, etc). After that, yes, the government saw it as a tool to create policy, but that doesn't change the fact that free markets encourage fraud and unfair tactics, especially if what is being done isn't technically illegal.
Free markets mean collusion and price fixing; I'd rather have a competitive market than a free one. Regulation is needed in any system; free markets aren't always competitive, and competitive markets aren't always free. I think the bigger issue is that every system requires regular maintenance, and we've dropped the ball on that for a long time; it's not as simple as saying "we need a freer market" because we wouldn't maintain it anyways. I think universal suffrage is the real problem, because those that don't contribute still get a say in how things run.
That kind of thinking is how it got like this in the first place.
No, for most of the beginning of this country (until the 50s-60s) the economic regulations we had we reactions to bad actors in the market (e.g. anticompetitive actors, market manipulation, etc). After that, yes, the government saw it as a tool to create policy, but that doesn't change the fact that free markets encourage fraud and unfair tactics, especially if what is being done isn't technically illegal.