The salient feature of a ‘free market economy’ (could such a thing actually exist), the single thing that would tell you whether the economy was or was not actually a free market economy, is that in a free market economy every business, no matter how large or small or what any business produced, would have a rate of profit equal to the rate of return on a ‘perfectly secure’ bond.

In ‘normal’ times, the return on the benchmark 10-yr. U.S. government bond is maybe two to three percent above the rate of inflation. What owner of any business wants that for a rate of profit? In other words, a free market economy is the last thing any owner of any business really wants.