Free markets don't magically solve the problems of capitalism. You still have to deal with monopolies, entrenched market leaders, mergers leading to less competition, backroom non-competition agreements, lobbying for prefential treatment, revolving doors between regulators and market players, or just plain corruption and bribery.
What I see everywhere, not just in Britain, is the same old story over and over again: privatizing the profits, nationalizing the losses.
So, this might not be my strongest metaphor, but I see free markets a bit like the arena in fight club. Two people fighting, the others forming a circle that pushes the combatants back to the center.
We want the "fight" to occur. Economies are complex systems and humans have extensively proven that they're not good at running those. Free markets are the most effective way to facilitate technological progress and economic growth which indeed benefits everyone - although not in equal amounts.
However, we have to be mindful that free markets contain the seed to their own destruction. On the upper end, there's monopolies, price fixing and other anti-competitive behavior that disables the price finding mechanism.
On the lower end, there is poverty which prevents people from participating and discourages entrepreneurship.
Good regulation does just enough to keep the fighters in the arena.
> Free markets are the most effective way to facilitate technological progress and economic growth which indeed benefits everyone - although not in equal amounts.
When employed in the right place. It's very much not clear that train networks are that place, in fact I'd say it's quite clear in the UK that train networks are not that place.
odd to say problems of capitalism when none of those are peculiar to capitalism. and a regulated market in which lobbyists vie for preferential treatment is the antithesis of a free market
markets aren't features of the land that exist unspoiled until sullied by human hand -- what I see is that markets will always collapse into monopoly absent any countervailing force, for the simple fact that enterprise owners make more profit that way
The drug wars are one hell of a counter example. Although it has "regulation" in the form of military action being taken against the largest, especially when the cartel head gets too big for their britches.
But the point, yet again is that free markets aren't the goal. Market competition is.
Unregulated markets move away from market competition. They move towards monopolies, exclusivity contracts and similar items. Enforcing competition is the only effective method of benefiting society.
What I see everywhere, not just in Britain, is the same old story over and over again: privatizing the profits, nationalizing the losses.