Free market - wikipedia Free market For economic systems coordinated by either free markets or regulated markets, see Market economy. `` Free enterprise '' redirects here. For other uses, see Free enterprise ( disambiguation ). 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Proponents of the concept of free market contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand through various methods such as tariffs used to restrict trade and protect the economy. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy. In scholarly debates, the concept of a free market is contrasted with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology, and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in actually existing market systems of rule making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those forces to operate to control productive output and distribution. One famous statement of the scholarly approach to the concept of free markets within political science is Freer Markets, More Rules by Steven K. Vogel. As the title suggests, the scholarly study of free markets is more accurately understood as the act of increasing or decreasing how strict rules are ( more free or less free ; liberalizing or deliberalizing ) rather than the idealized concept of free markets as a state of the world. Free markets as a verb phrase, rather than free markets as a noun phrase. Although free markets are commonly associated with capitalism within a market economy in contemporary usage and popular culture, free markets have also been advocated by free - market anarchists, market socialists, and some proponents of cooperatives and advocates of profit sharing. Criticism of the theoretical concept consider systems with significant market power, inequality of bargaining power, or information asymmetry to be less than free, with regulation being necessary to control those imbalances in order to allow markets to function more efficiently as well as produce more desirable social outcomes. Contents 1 Economic systems 1.1 Laissez - faire economics 1.2 Socialist economics 1.3 Geoist economics 1.4 Non-laissez - faire capitalist systems 2 Concepts 2.1 Supply and demand 2.2 Economic equilibrium 2.3 Low barriers to entry 2.4 Spontaneous order 2.5 General principles 3 Criticisms 4 See also 5 Notes 6 Further reading 7 External links Economic systems Laissez - faire economics Part of a series on Libertarianism Origins Age of Enlightenment Aristotelianism Classical liberalism Concepts Anti-authoritarianism Antimilitarism Anti-statism Anti-war Argumentation ethics Class struggle Communes Counter-economics Crypto - anarchism Decentralization Direct action Dispute resolution organization Economic freedom Egalitarianism Expropriative anarchism Free market Free - market environmentalism Free migration Free society Free trade Free will Freedom of association Freedom of contract Gift economy Homestead principle Illegalism Individuality Individualism Individual reclamation Laissez - faire Liberty Limited government Localism Marriage privatization Natural and legal rights Night - watchman state Non-aggression principle Non-interventionism Non-politics Non-voting Participatory economics Polycentric law Private defense agency Propaganda of the deed Property Really Really Free Market Refusal of work Restorative justice Self - governance Self - ownership Single tax Spontaneous order Squatting Stateless society Tax resistance Title - transfer theory of contract Voluntary association Voluntary society Wage slavery Workers ' self - management Schools Agorism Anarchism Anarcho - capitalism Autarchism Christian libertarianism Collectivist anarchism Consequentialist libertarianism Free - market anarchism Fusionism Geolibertarianism Georgism Green anarchism Green libertarianism Individualist anarchism Insurrectionary anarchism Left - libertarianism Left - wing market anarchism Libertarian communism Libertarian Marxism Libertarian socialism Libertarian transhumanism Minarchism Mutualism Natural - rights libertarianism Paleolibertarianism Panarchism Right - libertarianism Social anarchism Voluntaryism People Émile Armand Mikhail Bakunin Frédéric Bastiat Alexander Berkman Walter Block Murray Bookchin Jason Brennan Bryan Caplan Kevin Carson Voltairine de Cleyre Joseph Déjacque Buenaventura Durruti Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia Ricardo Flores Magón David D. 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Tawney Johan Rudolph Thorbecke Henry David Thoreau Alexis de Tocqueville Antoine Destutt de Tracy Anne Robert Jacques Turgot Voltaire Lester Frank Ward Max Weber Mary Wollstonecraft Tao Xingzhi Gu Zhun Organizations Liberal parties Africa Liberal Network ( ALN ) Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe ( ALDE ) Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party ( ALDEP ) Arab Liberal Federation ( ALF ) Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats ( CALD ) European Democratic Party ( EDP ) European Liberal Youth ( LYMEC ) European Party for Individual Liberty ( EPIL ) International Alliance of Libertarian Parties ( IALP ) International Federation of Liberal Youth ( IFLRY ) Liberal International Liberal Network for Latin America ( RELIAL ) Liberal South East European Network ( LIBSEEN ) Regional variants Europe Latin America Albania Armenia Australia Austria Belgium Bolivia Brazil Bulgaria Canada China Chile Colombia Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech lands Denmark Ecuador Egypt Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Iran Israel Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Mexico Moldova Montenegro Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Senegal Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain South Africa South Korea Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Tunisia Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States Uruguay Venezuela Zimbabwe Related topics Democratic capitalism Democratic education Liberal bias in academia Regressive left Liberalism portal Politics portal Main article : Laissez - faire The laissez - faire principle expresses a preference for an absence of non-market pressures on prices and wages, such as those from discriminatory government taxes, subsidies, tariffs, regulations of purely private behavior, or government - granted or coercive monopolies. Friedrich Hayek argued in The Pure Theory of Capital that the goal is the preservation of the unique information contained in the price itself. The definition of free market has been disputed and made complex by collectivist political philosophers and socialist economic ideas. This contention arose from the divergence from classical economists such as Richard Cantillon, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Robert Malthus, and from the continental economic science developed primarily by the Spanish scholastic and French classical economists, including Anne - Robert - Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, Jean - Baptiste Say and Frédéric Bastiat. During the marginal revolution, subjective value theory was rediscovered. Socialist economics Part of a series on Socialism Development History of socialism Socialist calculation debate Socialist economics Ideas Calculation in kind Collective ownership Cooperative Common ownership Commune ( model of government ) Economic democracy Economic planning Equal opportunity Free association Industrial democracy Input -- output model Internationalism Labor - time calculation Labour voucher Material balance planning Peer ‐ to ‐ peer economics ( Sharing economy ) Production for use Social dividend Social ownership Socialism in one country Socialist mode of production State ownership To each according to his contribution / needs Workplace democracy Workers ' self - management Models Decentralized planning Participatory economics Market socialism Lange model Mutualism Planned economy Soviet - type OGAS Project Cybersyn Socialist market economy Socialist - oriented market Variants 21st - century African Arab Agrarian Anarchist Authoritarian Blanquism Communism Conservative Democratic Ethical Ecological Feminist Gandhian Guild Liberal Libertarian Market Marhaenism Marxism Municipal Owenism Reformism Religious Revolutionary Ricardian Scientific Social democracy Socialist nationalism State Syndicalism Technocracy Third World Utopian Zionist History by country Australia Bangladesh Brazil Canada China Estonia France Hong Kong India Iran Netherlands New Zealand Pakistan South Korea Tunisia United Kingdom United States People Thomas More Henri de Saint - Simon François - Noël Babeuf Charles Hall Robert Owen Charles Fourier William Thompson Thomas Hodgskin Étienne Cabet Pierre - Joseph Proudhon Louis Blanc Mikhail Bakunin Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Ferdinand Lassalle William Morris Mary Harris Jones Peter Kropotkin Eduard Bernstein Errico Malatesta Fred M. Taylor Georgi Plekhanov John Dewey Enrico Barone W.E.B. Du Bois Emma Goldman Rosa Luxemburg Léon Blum Bertrand Russell Antonie Pannekoek Luis Emilio Recabarren Albert Einstein Leon Trotsky Helen Keller Clement Attlee Karl Polanyi Nestor Makhno G.D.H. Cole Imre Nagy Einar Gerhardsen George Orwell Tommy Douglas Léopold Sédar Senghor Tage Erlander Salvador Allende Bruno Kreisky François Mitterrand Gamal Abdel Nasser Nelson Mandela Murray Bookchin Alexander Dubček Howard Zinn E.P. Thompson Michael Manley Noam Chomsky Martin Luther King Jr. Mikhail Gorbachev Jack Layton Bernie Sanders Tariq Ali Abdullah Öcalan Slavoj Žižek Jeremy Corbyn Cornel West Hugo Chávez Chris Hedges Yanis Varoufakis Organizations First International ( International Workingmen 's Association ) Second International Third International ( Comintern ) Fourth International Fifth International Labour and Socialist International Socialist International World Federation of Democratic Youth International Union of Socialist Youth World Socialist Movement International Committee of the Fourth International Progressive Alliance Related topics Anarchism Capitalism Communist society Criticism of capitalism Economic system French Left List of socialist economists Nanosocialism Progressivism Right - wing socialism Socialism and LGBT rights Socialist bloc Socialist Party Socialist state Socialism portal Economics portal Politics portal Various forms of socialism based on free markets have existed since the 19th century. Early notable socialist proponents of free markets include Pierre - Joseph Proudhon, Benjamin Tucker, and the Ricardian socialists. These economists believed that genuinely free markets and voluntary exchange could not exist within the exploitative conditions of capitalism. These proposals ranged from various forms of worker cooperatives operating in a free market economy, such as the mutualist system proposed by Proudhon, to state - owned enterprises operating in unregulated and open markets. These models of socialism are not to be confused with other forms of market socialism ( e.g. the Lange model ) where publicly owned enterprises are coordinated by various degrees of economic planning, or where capital good prices are determined through marginal cost pricing. Advocates of free - market socialism such as Jaroslav Vanek argue that genuinely free markets are not possible under conditions of private ownership of productive property. Instead, he contends that the class differences and inequalities in income and power that result from private ownership enable the interests of the dominant class to skew the market to their favor, either in the form of monopoly and market power, or by utilizing their wealth and resources to legislate government policies that benefit their specific business interests. Additionally, Vanek states that workers in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self - managed enterprises have stronger incentives to maximize productivity because they would receive a share of the profits ( based on the overall performance of their enterprise ) in addition to receiving their fixed wage or salary. Socialists also assert that free market capitalism leads to an excessively skewed distribution of income, which in turn leads to social instability. As a result, corrective measures in the form of social welfare, re-distributive taxation, and administrative costs are required, which end up being paid into workers hands who spend and help the economy to run. They claim corporate monopolies run rampant in free markets, with endless agency over the consumer. Thus, free market socialism desires government regulation of markets to prevent social instability, although at the cost of taxpayer dollars. Geoist economics As explained above, for classical economists such as Adam Smith the term `` free market '' does not necessarily refer to a market free from government interference, but rather free from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies, and artificial scarcities. This implies that economic rents, i.e. profits generated from a lack of perfect competition, must be reduced or eliminated as much as possible through free competition. Economic theory suggests the returns to land and other natural resources are economic rents that can not be reduced in such a way because of their perfect inelastic supply. Some economic thinkers emphasize the need to share those rents as an essential requirement for a well functioning market. It is suggested this would both eliminate the need for regular taxes that have a negative effect on trade ( see deadweight loss ) as well as release land and resources that are speculated upon or monopolised. Two features that improve the competition and free market mechanisms. Winston Churchill supported this view by his statement `` Land is the mother of all monopoly ''. The American economist and social philosopher Henry George, the most famous proponent of this thesis, wanted to accomplish this through a high land value tax that replaces all other taxes. Followers of his ideas are often called Georgists or Geoists and Geolibertarians. Léon Walras, one of the founders of the neoclassical economics who helped formulate the general equilibrium theory, had a very similar view. He argued that free competition could only be realized under conditions of state ownership of natural resources and land. Additionally, income taxes could be eliminated because the state would receive income to finance public services through owning such resources and enterprises. Non-laissez - faire capitalist systems The stronger incentives to maximize productivity that Vanek conceives as possible in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self - managed enterprises might be accomplished in a capitalistic free market if employee - owned companies were the norm, as envisioned by various thinkers including Louis O. Kelso and James S. Albus. Concepts Supply and demand Main article : Supply and demand Demand for an item ( such as goods or services ) refers to the market pressure from people trying to buy it. Buyers have a maximum price they are willing to pay and sellers have a minimum price they are willing to offer their product. The point at which the supply and demand curves meet is the equilibrium price of the good and quantity demanded. Sellers willing to offer their goods at a lower price than the equilibrium price receive the difference as producer surplus. Buyers willing to pay for goods at a higher price than the equilibrium price receive the difference as consumer surplus. The model is commonly applied to wages in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell ( supply ) their labor for the highest price. The consumers are businesses, which try to buy ( demand ) the type of labor they need at the lowest price. As more people offer their labor in that market, the equilibrium wage decreases and the equilibrium level of employment increases as the supply curve shifts to the right. The opposite happens if fewer people offer their wages in the market as the supply curve shifts to the left. In a free market, individuals and firms taking part in these transactions have the liberty to enter, leave and participate in the market as they so choose. Prices and quantities are allowed to adjust according to economic conditions in order to reach equilibrium and properly allocate resources. However, in many countries around the world, governments seek to intervene in the free market in order to achieve certain social or political agendas. Governments may attempt to create social equality or equality of outcome by intervening in the market through actions such as imposing a minimum wage ( price floor ) or erecting price controls ( price ceiling ). Other lesser - known goals are also pursued, such as in the United States, where the federal government subsidizes owners of fertile land to not grow crops in order to prevent the supply curve from further shifting to the right and decreasing the equilibrium price. This is done under the justification of maintaining farmers ' profits ; due to the relative inelasticity of demand for crops, increased supply would lower the price but not significantly increase quantity demanded, thus placing pressure on farmers to exit the market. Such interventions are often done in the name of maintaining basic assumptions of free markets, such as the idea that the costs of production must be included in the price of goods. Pollution and depletion costs are sometimes NOT included in the cost of production ( a manufacturer that withdraws water at one location then discharges it polluted downstream, avoiding the cost of treating the water ), so governments may opt to impose regulations in an attempt to try to internalize all of the cost of production ( and ultimately include them in the price of the goods ). Advocates of the free market contend that government intervention hampers economic growth by disrupting the natural allocation of resources according to supply and demand, while critics of the free market contend that government intervention is sometimes necessary to protect a country 's economy from better - developed and more influential economies, while providing the stability necessary for wise long - term investment. Milton Friedman pointed to failures of central planning, price controls and state - owned corporations, particularly in the Soviet Union and Communist China, while Ha - Joon Chang cites the examples of post-war Japan and the growth of South Korea 's steel industry. Economic equilibrium Main article : Economic equilibrium General equilibrium theory has demonstrated, with varying degrees of mathematical rigor over time, that under certain conditions of competition, the law of supply and demand predominates in this ideal free and competitive market, influencing prices toward an equilibrium that balances the demands for the products against the supplies. At these equilibrium prices, the market distributes the products to the purchasers according to each purchaser 's preference ( or utility ) for each product and within the relative limits of each buyer 's purchasing power. This result is described as market efficiency, or more specifically a Pareto optimum. This equilibrating behavior of free markets requires certain assumptions about their agents, collectively known as perfect competition, which therefore can not be results of the market that they create. Among these assumptions are several which are impossible to fully achieve in a real market, such as complete information, interchangeable goods and services, and lack of market power. The question then is what approximations of these conditions guarantee approximations of market efficiency, and which failures in competition generate overall market failures. Several Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded for analyses of market failures due to asymmetric information. Low barriers to entry Main article : Barriers to entry A free market does not require the existence of competition, however it does require a framework that allows new market entrants. Hence, in the lack of coercive barriers, and in markets with low entry cost it is generally understood that competition flourishes in a free - market environment. It often suggests the presence of the profit motive, although neither a profit motive or profit itself are necessary for a free market. All modern free markets are understood to include entrepreneurs, both individuals and businesses. Typically, a modern free market economy would include other features, such as a stock exchange and a financial services sector, but they do not define it. Spontaneous order Main articles : Invisible hand and Spontaneous order Friedrich Hayek popularized the view that market economies promote spontaneous order which results in a better `` allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve. '' According to this view, in market economies are characterized by the formation of complex transactional networks which produce and distribute goods and services throughout the economy. These networks are not designed, but nevertheless emerge as a result of decentralized individual economic decisions. The idea of spontaneous order is an elaboration on the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. Smith wrote that the individual who : By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest ( an individual ) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the ( common ) good. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Smith pointed out that one does not get one 's dinner by appealing to the brother - love of the butcher, the farmer or the baker. Rather one appeals to their self - interest, and pays them for their labor. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self - interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self - love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. -- Adam Smith Supporters of this view claim that spontaneous order is superior to any order that does not allow individuals to make their own choices of what to produce, what to buy, what to sell, and at what prices, due to the number and complexity of the factors involved. They further believe that any attempt to implement central planning will result in more disorder, or a less efficient production and distribution of goods and services. Critics, such as political economist Karl Polanyi, question whether a spontaneously ordered market can exist, completely free of `` distortions '' of political policy ; claiming that even the ostensibly freest markets require a state to exercise coercive power in some areas -- to enforce contracts, to govern the formation of labor unions, to spell out the rights and obligations of corporations, to shape who has standing to bring legal actions, to define what constitutes an unacceptable conflict of interest, etc. General principles The Heritage Foundation, a right - wing think tank, tried to identify the key factors necessary to measure the degree of freedom of economy of a particular country. In 1986 they introduced the Index of Economic Freedom, which is based on some fifty variables. This and other similar indices do not define a free market, but measure the degree to which a modern economy is free, meaning in most cases, free of state intervention. The variables are divided into the following major groups : Trade policy, Fiscal burden of government, Government intervention in the economy, Monetary policy, Capital flows and foreign investment, Banking and finance, Wages and prices, Property rights, Regulation, and Informal market activity. These free market principles are what helped America transition to a free market economy. International free trade improved the country and in order for Americans to prosper from a strong economy they had no choice but to embrace it. Each group is assigned a numerical value between 1 and 5 ; IEF is the arithmetical mean of the values, rounded to the nearest hundredth. Initially, countries which were traditionally considered capitalistic received high ratings, but the method improved over time. Some economists, like Milton Friedman and other laissez - faire economists have argued that there is a direct relationship between economic growth and economic freedom, and some studies suggest this is true. Ongoing debates exist among scholars regarding methodological issues in empirical studies of the connection between economic freedom and economic growth. These debates and studies continue to explore just what that relationship entails. The principles of a free market are defined as : Individual Rights : `` We are each created with equal individual rights to control and to defend our life, liberty and property and to voluntary contractual exchange. '' Limited Government : `` Governments are instituted only to secure individual rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. '' Equal Justice Under Law : `` Government must treat everyone equally ; neither rewarding failure nor punishing success. '' Subsidiarity : `` Government authority must reside at the lowest feasible level. '' Spontaneous Order : `` When individual rights are respected, unregulated competition will maximize economic benefit for society by providing the most goods and services possible at the lowest cost. '' Property Rights : `` Private ownership is the most efficient way to sustainably utilize resources. '' The Golden Rule : `` Deal with others honestly and require honesty in return. '' Criticisms See also : Criticism of capitalism Critics of the free market have argued that, in real world situations, it has proven to be susceptible to the development of price fixing monopolies. Such reasoning has led to government intervention, e.g. the United States antitrust law. Two prominent Canadian authors argue that government at times has to intervene to ensure competition in large and important industries. Naomi Klein illustrates this roughly in her work The Shock Doctrine and John Ralston Saul more humorously illustrates this through various examples in The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World. While its supporters argue that only a free market can create healthy competition and therefore more business and reasonable prices, opponents say that a free market in its purest form may result in the opposite. According to Klein and Ralston, the merging of companies into giant corporations or the privatization of government - run industry and national assets often result in monopolies ( or oligopolies ) requiring government intervention to force competition and reasonable prices. Another form of market failure is speculation, where transactions are made to profit from short term fluctuation, rather from the intrinsic value of the companies or products. This criticism has been challenged by historians such as Lawrence Reed, who argued that monopolies have historically failed to form even in the absence of anti-trust law. This is because monopolies are inherently difficult to maintain : a company that tries to maintain its monopoly by buying out new competitors, for instance, is incentivizing newcomers to enter the market in hope of a buy - out. American philosopher and author Cornel West has derisively termed what he perceives as dogmatic arguments for laissez - faire economic policies as `` free - market fundamentalism ''. West has contended that such mentality `` trivializes the concern for public interest '' and `` makes money - driven, poll - obsessed elected officials deferential to corporate goals of profit -- often at the cost of the common good. '' American political philosopher Michael J. Sandel contends that in the last 30 years the United States has moved beyond just having a market economy and has become a market society where literally everything is for sale, including aspects of social and civic life such as education, access to justice and political influence. The economic historian Karl Polanyi was highly critical of the idea of the market - based society in his book The Great Transformation, noting that any attempt at its creation would undermine human society and the common good. Critics of free market economics range from those who reject markets entirely in favour of a planned economy as advocated by various Marxists, to those who wish to see market failures regulated to various degrees or supplemented by government interventions. Keynesians support market roles for government, such as using fiscal policy for economic stimulus when actions in the private sector lead to sub-optimal economic outcomes of depressions or recessions. Business cycle theory is used by Keynesians to explain liquidity traps, by which underconsumption occurs, to argue for government intervention with fiscal policy. Some would argue, only one known example of a true free market exists, which is the black market. The black market is under constant threat by the police, but under no circumstances do the police regulate the substances that are being created. The black market produces wholly unregulated goods, and are purchased and consumed unregulated. That is to say, anyone can produce anything at any time, and anyone can purchase anything available at any time. The alternative view is that the black market is not a free market at all since high prices and monopolies are often enforced through murder, theft and destruction. Black markets can only exist peripheral to regulated markets where laws are being regularly enforced. See also Binary economics Black market Crony capitalism Economic liberalism Free trade Freedom of choice Grey market Neoliberalism Participatory economics Quasi-market Self - managed economy Transparency ( market ) Notes Jump up ^ Vogel, Steven Kent ( 1998 - 04 - 09 ). Freer Markets, More Rules : Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801485343. Jump up ^ Bockman, Johanna ( 2011 ). Markets in the name of Socialism : The Left - Wing origins of Neoliberalism. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8047 - 7566 - 3. Jump up ^ The Pure Theory of Capital, F.A. Hayek, 1941 ^ Jump up to : Popper, Karl ( 1994 ). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Routledge Classics. ISBN 978 - 0 - 415 - 61021 - 6. Jump up ^ Popper, Karl ( 2002 ). The Poverty of Historicism. Routledge Classics. ISBN 0415278465. Jump up ^ `` Cooperative Economics : An Interview with Jaroslav Vanek '', interview by Albert Perkins. Retrieved March 17, 2011 : http://www.ru.org/51cooper.html Jump up ^ The Political Economy of Socialism, by Horvat, Branko. 1982. ( pp. 197 -- 98 ) Jump up ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations Book V, Chapter 2, Part 2, Article I : Taxes upon the Rent of Houses Jump up ^ House Of Commons May 4th ; King 's Theatre, Edinburgh, July 17 Jump up ^ Backhaus, `` Henry George 's Ingenious Tax, '' pp. 453 -- 58. Jump up ^ Bockman, Johanna ( 2011 ). Markets in the name of Socialism : The Left - Wing origins of Neoliberalism. Stanford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8047 - 7566 - 3. For Walras, socialism would provide the necessary institutions for free competition and social justice. Socialism, in Walras 's view, entailed state ownership of land and natural resources and the abolition of income taxes. As owner of land and natural resources, the state could then lease these resources to many individuals and groups, which would eliminate monopolies and thus enable free competition. The leasing of land and natural resources would also provide enough state revenue to make income taxes unnecessary, allowing a worker to invest his savings and become ' an owner or capitalist at the same time that he remains a worker. ^ Jump up to : Judd, K.L. ( 1997 ). `` Computational economics and economic theory : Substitutes or complements ? ''. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. 21 ( 6 ) : 907 -- 42. doi : 10.1016 / S0165 - 1889 ( 97 ) 00010 - 9. Jump up ^ `` Archived copy ''. Archived from the original on 2014 - 05 - 22. Retrieved 2014 - 06 - 06. Jump up ^ `` Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Do n't Farm ''. Washington Post. 2 July 2006. Retrieved 3 June 2014. Jump up ^ Ip, Greg and Mark Whitehouse, `` How Milton Friedman Changed Economics, Policy and Markets '', Wall Street Journal Online ( November 17, 2006 ). Jump up ^ `` Bad Samaritans : The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism '', Ha - Joon Chang, Bloomsbury Press, ISBN 978 - 1596915985 Jump up ^ Theory of Value, by Gérard Debreu Jump up ^ Hayek cited. Petsoulas, Christina. Hayek 's Liberalism and Its Origins : His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment. Routledge. 2001. p. 2 Jump up ^ Smith, Adam ( 1776 ). `` 2 ''. Wealth of Nations. 1. London : W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Jump up ^ Winner - Take - All Politics : How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Simon & Schuster 2010, p. 55 Jump up ^ Hunt, Michael H ( 2004 ). The World Transformed : 1945 To The Present. Boston : Bedford / St. Martin 's : Oxford University Press. p. 313. Jump up ^ Ayal, Eliezer B. and Karras, Georgios. `` Components of Economic Freedom and Growth. '' Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 32, No. 3, Spring 1998, pp. 327 -- 38. Publisher : Western Illinois University. Jump up ^ COLE, Julio H. and LAWSON, Robert A. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions : Suggestions for Clarification. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp. 71 -- 78. Jump up ^ DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan - Egbert. How to Handle Economic Freedom : Reply to Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 3, Number 3, September 2006, pp. 407 -- 411. Jump up ^ DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan - Egbert. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions : A Reply to Cole and Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp. 79 -- 82. Jump up ^ Principles of the Free Market Free Market Monument Foundation, 2009 Jump up ^ Tarbell, Ida ( 1904 ). The History of the Standard Oil Company. McClure, Phillips and Co. ^ Jump up to : Saul, John The End of Globalism. Jump up ^ `` Cliche # 41 : `` Rockefeller 's Standard Oil Company Proved That We Needed Anti-Trust Laws to Fight Such Market Monopolies '', The Freeman, January 23, 2015. Retrieved December 20, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Cornel West : Democracy Matters '', The Globalist, January 24, 2005. Retrieved October 9, 2014. Jump up ^ Michael J. Sandel ( June 2013 ). Why we should n't trust markets with our civic life. TED. Retrieved January 11, 2015. Jump up ^ Henry Farrell ( July 18, 2014 ). The free market is an impossible utopia. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 11, 2015. Further reading Block, Fred and Somers, Margaret R ( 2014 ). The Power of Market Fundamentalism : Karl Polanyi 's Critique. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674050711 Boettke, Peter J. `` What Went Wrong with Economics ? '', Critical Review Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 35, 58 Harcourt, Bernard ( 2012 ). The Illusion of Free Markets : Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674066162 Cox, Harvey ( 2016 ). The Market as God. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674659681 Hayek, Friedrich A. ( 1948 ). Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. vii, 271, ( 1 ) Palda, Filip ( 2011 ) Pareto 's Republic and the New Science of Peace 2011 ( 1 ) chapters online. Published by Cooper - Wolfling. ISBN 978 - 0 - 9877880 - 0 - 9 Sandel, Michael J. ( 2013 ). What Money Ca n't Buy : The Moral Limits of Markets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374533652 Stiglitz, Joseph. ( 1994 ). Whither Socialism ? Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press. Verhaeghe, Paul ( 2014 ). What About Me ? The Struggle for Identity in a Market - Based Society. Scribe Publications. ISBN 1922247375 Robert Kuttner, `` The Man from Red Vienna '' ( review of Gareth Dale, Karl Polanyi : A Life on the Left, Columbia University Press, 381 pp. ), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIV, no. 20 ( 21 December 2017 ), pp. 55 -- 57. `` In sum, Polanyi got some details wrong, but he got the big picture right. Democracy can not survive an excessively free market ; and containing the market is the task of politics. To ignore that is to court fascism. 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Question: who controls goods and services in a free market economy
Answer: the open market and consumers