The market is not an object or a thing but rather a term used to describe the actions and desires of individuals in a collective effort. This collective provides valuation to the marketplace and is often described as “the market” but it’s important to always remember what the market actually is.
Understanding this root concept is why the market is always free and can never be any other way. When people say we need free markets to determine prices they fail to realize that a free market is always determining prices.
Market Interference
The market provides valuation based on interference. Every action an individual or group takes or doesn’t take is a type of interference. Without interference there can be no market.
In this way, interference is really just a word being used to describe “actions” that individuals or groups take.
When you go to your grocery store and buy something, you are causing market interference, even though the impact may not be big (unless you go and buy 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer so nobody can buy any in your area).
A free market always has interference, whether the earth runs out of resources, someone raises a price, someone buys up all the supply, or a government sets a regulation, these interferences are necessary to cause a valuation.
If there was no supply/demand interference and no government interference, nothing would have any value.
People tend to forget that there is always market interference, removing government interference would only result in the more fortunate being abusive toward the less fortunate, not because they are abusive people but because they are acting in their best interest which may be to grow, get more profits, or dominate the market.
So will government interference cause some incorrect valuation of something and cause damage to the marketplace?
Of course not, that is absurd, the government is merely a collective group of individuals determining what value something has and those that don’t agree or aren’t part of that collective group will have a different value which will also express itself in some form in the marketplace.
Regulations
Regulations are often blamed for causing market interference but what people are actually upset about is regulations they don’t philosophically agree with.
Most of the time they aren’t talking about removing anti-monopoly regulations but other forms of government interference like what type of light bulbs they can have, what the interest rates should be, or what type of cars they can produce.
Without monopoly laws it is more than likely everything would be owned by something similar to the “umbrella corporation” after it conquers every sector of the market or we’ll be left with only big companies after they’ve bought out and shut out every other competitor.
So people don’t tend to target that regulation too often, if that one didn’t exist we’d all be owned by Bill Gates at this point.
You may be thinking, hey, this umbrella corporation already sounds a lot like the government, and you’d be right.
Government has ownership over everything. The only difference may be that we get to pretend that we control the government to contain some of these big companies from completely dominating the world.
In that sense, we are all equal shareholders in the government where we may not be equal shareholders in a big corporation or shareholders at all if it takes over the world meaning we will have even less say than we have now.
Low and behold, demanding the government remove regulations from the marketplace to make it free, not surprisingly, is a form of regulation because it undermines the free will of other individuals to collectively regulate through government.
In the end, it’s always a group of collective individuals that provide valuation and whether some people like it or not, that includes governments and businesses.
Markets
The market can’t be hindered because it freely does what it does in response to these interferences.
When you talk about removing regulation you’re actually talking about regulating the free market, because in a free market everyone is free to do as they please.
Governments are free to regulate, producers are free to limit the supply chain to increase prices, and users are free to do/buy/sell whatever is in their own personal best interest.
Freedom isn’t free if it only applies to certain individuals and not others.
The “black” market is still part of the market and is part of the free market. The black market is a collective group of individuals that are willing to utilize its services understanding what the consequences may be.
These individuals find it more valuable to buy/trade goods against government regulations or laws than the consequences these actions may have (jail time, fines, etc).
If government was the darkside, the black market would be it’s balance in the force.
That’s called the free market or simply, the market.
There are always going to be groups of people who don’t want any regulations and those that want massive regulations, there isn’t an in between where they agree. This has been going on since the dawning of humans so it’s unlikely to change — lucky for us they tend to balance each other out in the long run.
Sometimes the balancing takes more than our individual lifetimes so we may live a large portion of our life under the influence of the dark side or the light, this is something that we can’t control, but something we can usually find a way to avoid.
Every choice and decision comes with a consequence and everyone is free to make those choices.
If oil producers made a pact to stop producing oil, people might cry and say you’re not allowing the market to function, but when oil prices get too high people stop buying it or find alternative ways to do what they were doing.
The market finds alternatives, so it is in the best interests of oil producers to find a balance or risk becoming obsolete.
Governments
When governments regulate something it has the exact same effect.
The regulations are a cause and the market movement is the effect. But regulations are simply the government (a collective group of people) doing what is in their best interest.
Government efforts to stop price gouging may restrict the price of goods from going up, this could result in extreme shortages and starvation (so the story goes) but when a certain food or item is too expensive or unavailable, the market will produce alternatives.
Everyone complains about what would happen if milk went to $15 a gallon and it’s really not that big of a deal.
Those that want to pay $15 for a gallon of milk would continue to do so and others would stop buying milk and find something else.
That’s how the “free market” works.
The market is never not free, the collective group of individuals will continue to make circumstantial choices as things change they will continue to value things and find alternatives when things become unavailable.
Government regulations may “kill” entire industries but don’t forget that the regulations came from a collective group of individuals, this does not hinder the market, people will continue to make choices and decisions freely about what they want in their lives and valuations will continue to adapt to circumstance.
The problem most people have is that THEY really liked that market or that service or that product that got regulated, unfortunately they are a minority, and minorities don’t determine the value of something, majorities do.
That’s how the “free” market works.
Summary
So when people refer to free markets, black markets, or unfree markets — they’re really talking about the same thing, which is just the market. And the market is really just a term used to describe how people value things in the marketplace given the circumstances.
There are no separate markets and the market is always a free market.
Regulations won’t be removed until a majority agrees they need to be removed and making someone remove regulations is basically regulating that there will be no regulations, and in the sense people use the term “free market” the market is actually never free by their own definition regardless of what happens.
One side is trying to force regulations while the other side is trying to force there not to be regulations. Both are done by force, both are regulations, and whoever has the majority decides which regulations are used.
It’s far better to understand and accept that the market doesn’t care what is happening, it will continue to process that information and provide valuations freely.
It is a lot harder to change others, people dedicate a lifetime to that cause. Instead of giving up your life to these causes, you can freely make decisions for yourself.
Remember there are many governments, some with more regulation, some with less, and you have the freedom to join almost any of them you choose and relocate yourself so that you can have a market that works for you.
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