the idea of a "Free Market" is so abstract people often don't counter questions about it effectively
so here's a new way to talk about it:
The Free Market is a State offloading the burden of Due Dilligence and Regulation to the consumer
Allowing companies to lie to you, and putting the fault at your feet. If you don't like it, sue them! Good luck :)!
It's about the State abdicating it's duty as the only institution with enough Business Knowledge to tell you when a deal is bad. The benefit of "The Free Market", for companies, is they get to lie to you and set their own prices and policies, because having to actually tell the truth and adjust to what people ACTUALLY NEED, is too high a burden for people wanting to do nothing but make money.
In regulated markets, the people they lie to actually have the resources to fact check them reliably.
@tjc had useful additions at:
https://cohost.org/tjc/post/3468743-the-corollary-here-i
and @ClaireWerewolf brings in the economics perspective:
https://cohost.org/ClaireWerewolf/post/3469968-i-have-a-degree-in-e
The corollary here is that the owning class has an interest in convincing everyone “you’re smarter than other people and therefore don’t need help from the state to fact-check anything.” Common sense, do your own research, etc. It’s easiest to control people when each person thinks they’re the smartest. That’s logically impossible but if you don’t think anyone else is worth talking to, you run no risk of having your self-conception refuted.
People who think they’re smart usually have false consciousness.
This is also why right-wingers try to erode confidence in any type of authority that’s even a little bit beholden to truth. For example: doctors don’t want you to know that modern medicine is useless and crystals will cure your cancer; educators don’t know anything and should only teach children what parents think should be taught; journalists can’t be trusted, only viral Facebook posts. Any group that even has the weakest remnant of a professional code of ethics is a threat to free-market ideology. And the more you believe in your own smartness, the less you’ll trust experts - how could anyone have anything to teach you when you’re already perfect?
