Free market and capitalism are mutually exclusive as in the theoretical model that is the free market, with perfectly rational actors and information, a capitalist class cannot exist, they’d quickly get competed down to size.
Unregulated markets and capitalism, now that’s a lovechild, as without regulation real-world markets quickly turn into monopolistic shark-tanks instead of free markets, actors not being rational, information not being perfect and all. The role of regulation, indeed the state, is to correct for that factor and make the real-world market approximate the free market.
(This view of the world brought to you by ordoliberalism, the only sane liberal economic theory there ever was or probably will be – because they actually managed to side with the free market, and not capitalism, as the rest of them).
Free market and capitalism are mutually exclusive as in the theoretical model that is the free market, with perfectly rational actors and information, a capitalist class cannot exist, they’d quickly get competed down to size.
Unregulated markets and capitalism, now that’s a lovechild, as without regulation real-world markets quickly turn into monopolistic shark-tanks instead of free markets, actors not being rational, information not being perfect and all. The role of regulation, indeed the state, is to correct for that factor and make the real-world market approximate the free market.
(This view of the world brought to you by ordoliberalism, the only sane liberal economic theory there ever was or probably will be – because they actually managed to side with the free market, and not capitalism, as the rest of them).