free-market

A free market is a market where prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual non-coerced consent of sellers and buyers, determined generally by the supply and demand law with no government interference in the regulation of costs, supply and demand. The opposite of a free market is a controlled market, where government sets or regulates prices directly or through regulating supply and/or demand. Although a free market necessitates that government does not regulate supply, demand, and prices, it also requires the traders themselves do not coerce or mislead each other, so that all trades are morally voluntary. This is not to be confused with a perfect market where individuals have perfect information and there is perfect competition. The notion of a free market is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants. Hence, with government force limited to a defensive role, government itself does not initiate force in the marketplace beyond levying taxes in order to fund the maintenance of the free marketplace. Some free market advocates oppose taxation as well, claiming that the market is better at providing all valuable services including defense and law, or that such services can be provided without direct taxation. Anarcho-capitalists, for example, would substitute arbitration agencies and private defense agencies.
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