Has there ever been a free market?

Just curious if this glorious free market has ever been seen in action.

when and where.

Never, thank God. A pure, 100% free market would dissolve into chaos. There needs to be a little bit of Government interference. Not much at all, but some. You can't be that extremeist.

I don't know. Personally I'd love to see a completely free market, it would be interesting. I think it would be the most flourishing place around. According to Bastiat (early economist/sociologist/political philospoher) the government should only serve one purpose, to protect its citizens and their property from inside and outside. Actually Bastiat is not the only famous, respected thinker to says so, Jonh Locke says so, does Montesquieu?

If you mean a market economy where the poor is not exploited and oppressed, no.

Sorry about the rhetoric. I'm feeling a bit communisty today.

Homie said:

I don't know. Personally I'd love to see a completely free market, it would be interesting. I think it would be the most flourishing place around. According to Bastiat (early economist/sociologist/political philospoher) the government should only serve one purpose, to protect its citizens and their property from inside and outside. Actually Bastiat is not the only famous, respected thinker to says so, Jonh Locke says so, does Montesquieu?

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you say it's never been done, but you think it would be the most flourishing? why do you say that?

and why should anyone care for bastiat's words when there are others who think differently? what about him makes his words more important than other philosophers who think the gov't should take care of it's citizens?

I'm pretty sure some parts of Somalia might count.

How do you define completely free market? Do mean anarcho-Capitalism where there is no formal government?
If so, than no. Without any formal government everything is legal, which would quickly lead to complete chaos, which, as shown throughout history, would lead to some other form of government other than what was originally intended.
Even with government insuring that there isn't chaos, it still doesn't work. People can be greedy, and without preventing power going to the greedy (or at least restricting that power similar to American Capitalism) then the greedy will pursue power until they have amassed complete control. Without regulation how can you prevent trade bodies from amassing power above trade? If there is no way (ie. its ok for them to gain that power) whats preventing them from eventually gaining extreme power?

Are we talking free as in "not in prison" or free as in "absolutely free"?

much of our existence was with a free market, thats the system smaller groups of people employ naturally.

Berzerker said:

much of our existence was with a free market, thats the system smaller groups of people employ naturally.

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No, really small groups of people, as far as they have been observed, if they have to make a living autonomously, tend not to adopt notions of private property at all. Anything valuable gets passed around, so that everyone gets to share for a while.

Free market requires the concopt of private property, which arises when much larger groups of people are involved. Nothing "natural" about it.

Has there ever been a free market?

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For the first few hundred thousand years of humanity.

Well probably not 100% free. Tribal taboos & whatnot but probably freer than it is anywhere now or ever will be.

Once civilization is founded laws & restrictions regarding trade will inevitably be formed.

Verbose said:

Free market requires the concopt of private property, which arises when much larger groups of people are involved. Nothing "natural" about it.

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Even monkeys can grasp the concept of private property. Perhaps for some nomadic peoples there wasn't much worth claiming ownership of but even in The Gods Must Be Crazy they fought over that coke bottle.

You can never have a 100% free market. It's against human nature. Just as you can never have 100% anything else.

I think a completely free market nowadays would be hell on earth

Verbose said:

No, really small groups of people, as far as they have been observed, if they have to make a living autonomously, tend not to adopt notions of private property at all. Anything valuable gets passed around, so that everyone gets to share for a while.

Free market requires the concopt of private property, which arises when much larger groups of people are involved. Nothing "natural" about it.

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Good observation there.

It is strange that every nutty politicall and economic theory has been tested except the free market. Governments by nature like to interfer in things.

Verbose said:

No, really small groups of people, as far as they have been observed, if they have to make a living autonomously, tend not to adopt notions of private property at all. Anything valuable gets passed around, so that everyone gets to share for a while.

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Sounds like natural prostitution.

Verbose said:

Free market requires the concopt of private property, which arises when much larger groups of people are involved. Nothing "natural" about it.

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Yes, it's more or less natural fallacy.

But then again even from a child we start to notice things that belong to us as part of ourselves.

It's the society finally deciding what path we take though.

AL_DA_GREAT said:

It is strange that every nutty politicall and economic theory has been tested except the free market. Governments by nature like to interfer in things.

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I'm not sure if "utopia" has been tested yet.

C~G said:

Sounds like natural prostitution.
Yes, it's more or less natural fallacy.

But then again even from a child we start to notice things that belong to us as part of ourselves.

It's the society finally deciding what path we take though.

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Yes, since the lithmus test comes when someone else looks longingly at whatever it is you currently posses.

Individuals in small scale societies tend to respond by gifting it. Since the recipient is expected to react in the same way when the next person looks longingly at and object, everyone expects to share in the end. What it does is defuse potential conflicts over attractive resources assembled by the group. Since the group is the only source of authority, preempting internal conflicts that may harm it is very important. Referring to some external authority, even in principle, isn't doable.

Private property attitudes like the ones we take for granted rely on conditioning even small children to be proprietorial in specfic ways. In the end it does rely on the possibility of calling in outside backup to safeguard these rights if necessary.

There are other things at work as well, like the difficulties of capitalising on valuable items in pre-modern societies, meaning it tends to be better to consume or gift it than to save and keep. Historically wealthy was always gauged not by how much was owned, but how much was given away.

If market rules arise after the number of people interacting reachs a critical mass, that would seem to be a natural process, wouldn't it? The point of any species seems to be to multiply and survive.

Why is this? Why is the market not needed for social optimal output/utility in small groups but needed in larger ones?

Well, that answer is pretty simple. When we're in a small group, we tend to know a good deal about the people around us, and we tend to see them often. This means there is not an assymetrical information problem (versus the larger group) and that in the small group individuals cannot hide their actions which detriment the group's overall position (to that individual's advanatage) as well (free-rider, problem of commons effects). In our everyday lives, we treat strangers differently than we do friends. We treat members of other nations different than we do our own.

I view the process of a "market" to be a naturally arising consequence of our species growing. "Barter" and "trade", market activities, have been around for eons.

As for the semantical definition of a free market, of course it hasn't been tried except in states of anarchy.

For how Adam Smith intended and defined a free-market, it has been the governing economic system of the "defined" Western world for a few hundred years, and the has been (mostly) the world's governing economic system for the past 50.

Just because different countries have different notions of how government should be involved in market / social activities doesn't mean they're not using free market concepts.

Sadly, I think this point of the original post was just an excuse to badger the concept semantically, without learning anything of value.