[Marseille]

Originally Posted by tompe

And just because something is called capitalism it doesn't make it healthy. So what was your point?

My point is Europe has a far more profound distrust of free and open markets than the US does, though we are getting closer to one another. And yes, capitalism defines what a healthy "free market" is even though it certainly doesn't define what a healthy liver or forest is.

Can you give some examples of real free markets and some examples of non-real free markets?

A healthy market has strong voices on both sides of a transaction or the unfettered potential for such. My description of markets ebbing and flowing was that even in a healthy market someone occasionally gets an upper hand (e.g., Apple in music) but that doesn't mean they keep it forever. So long as their mechanism for keeping it is continuing to provide services/goods that people want, there's no harm.

Public utilities are a great example of a non-free market. Government-granted monopolies. You get your power from them whether there is a better choice or not. Prices may be regulated, but government regulators and their formulas aren't that hard to manipulate. However, there's no reason you cannot create the same imbalance through contract that can be created through government granted monopoly. If enough people on side of the table collude to limit the other side's options, the result is the same.

And how do you define "better" [in "In real free markets, you're allowed to win by doing performing better than everyone else."] without using a circular definition?

I'm not sure what the ambiguity is. I don't like government created monopolies, however, should a company make something that people want to buy more than anything else, and they end up with a huge marketshare because of it, labeled by some as a monopoly, I'm not offended by that, and I don't believe free and healthy markets are typically harmed by that. You need something more than just success in attracting customers to have a bad monopoly.

For example, you might have collusion with partners through contract to unbalance one side of the negotiating table and leave consumers without an alternative price to seek goods out at.

I really am done and willing to let my above argument stand for itself, just thought it would be polite to answer your questions.