[quote=sdduuuude]
Pure market economies do involve regulation. Regulation has to exist to ensure that fradulent participants are punished, and contractual agreements are being honored. That’s where most people get it wrong. People think a free market is where everyone is free to do what they want and that the participants are required to be perfect citizens. This is dead wrong.
A free market requires that it’s participants are free from others infringing upon their rights, and to do this, transactional rules and regulations are needed.
For example, on critical element of a free market is that of property rights. Property rights must be upheld, and violations of property rights (theft) must be punshed for a free market to remain free. This can be considered a kind of regulation, yet it is a critical part of the free market.[/quote]
Okay, my last sequential post. A lot was said since I was on last night, so there was a lot to respond to…
sdduuuude, you are my hero for making this point. I make the same distinction. The term “regulation” is overloaded. We should be more precise and say whether we are referring to “rule of law” or “market manipulation”. I favor “rule of law” regulation (and incidentally, the inaccurately much-reviled-as-an-anarchist Ayn Rand did too. She said that is exactly what government’s role should be, protecting private property rights.) But market manipulation regulation is at direct odds with rule of law regulation because it allows (encourages) the government to violate private property rights instead of protecting them.
