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Originally Posted by David Marseilles
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.
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But that makes your argument about book selling irrelevant. We have a functioning book selling market but just becuase it does not satisfy your capitalistic-healthy property you call it not healthy. Of course it is healthy in a general sense if it is working and is working in a sustained way.
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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.
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I did not ask for examples of non-free markest. I asked for examples on non-real free markets which I took to be something that is called a free market but you do not consider to be a real free market.
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I'm not sure what the ambiguity is. I don't like government created
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The circularity is that "better" is defined as what a real free market gives us.