Can someone please explain what makes the “free” market “free”?

Left Winger: Can someone please explain what makes the “free” market “free”?
when historically non-whites were prevented from participating in this “free” market? Moreover, non-whites were enslaved and exploited so this “free” market could prosper. Capitalism grew DIRECTLY out of Europe’s GREED and the desire to CONTROL ALL of the world’s TRADE. THAT is why they went to India, THAT is why they went to the Americas, THAT is why they went to Asia and THAT is why they went to Africa, PURELY FOR PROFIT and THE BENEFIT of the EUROPEAN BANKING SYSTEM and to CAPITALIZE off the trade, resources, land and labor OF EVERYONE ELSE. All the original colonies in Africa, Asia and America WERE CHARTERED COMPANIES, which were among the FIRST STOCK ISSUING COMPANIES in the world. THAT is the origin of the MODERN CAPITALIST SYSTEM. The names of these companies SAYS IT ALL: The Jamestown Company, The Dutch East India Company, the South Africa Company. All of these VOYAGES to ‘new lands’ were PURELY FOR CONQUERING AND TAKING OVER the trade networks and WEALTH of the rest of the world.
Yet even after slavery Blacks still were prevented from setting up businesses, and participating in America’s so called democracy.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Ted Kennedy’s Car
after the civil war – the slaves were FREE too

LOL

Answer by Think Outside the Ballot Box
Because a free market is only free until the expansionist greed of the capitalist philosophy perverts it, using it to oppress and divide.

Regional, ethical resource-based free marketism is the most ideal economic system there is.
Unfortunately people exploit it, expand it and ruin it. It’s inevitable.

Answer by brucec83
That looks more like a dissertation than a question. Historically, I do not disagree.

What we refer to as the free market system has to do with the freedom of competitors to enter the market. The Monopoly granted by the Crown to the British East India company, which prohibited the production or importation of non-British textiles or salt to India were prime examples of governmental constraints that caused the market in those commodities to be anything but free.

Of course absolute freedom is impossible. One is always constrained by a number of factors, such as the availability of capital, expertise, patent monopolies, trade barriers and tariffs and monopolies in the supply chain, transportation, or markets.

Monopolies and oligopolies destroy free markets and that are the main reason that nations which value free markets have stringent anti-trust regulations. It is paradoxical that businesses must give up the freedom to dominate the market in order to achieve a competitive free market. This is not the same as capitalism as the hand of government acting as a referee is hardly the invisible one that Smith proposed.