But in real life, any time you have "a free market", by the definition of "no or minimal regulations", you will inevitably end up with a very un-free market, by the definition of "lots of choice for the consumer, healthy competition".
And far, far too many self-proclaimed libertarians think that any regulations that "encumber" the market take it farther away from being "free", when in fact, there are regulations that help and regulations that harm, and you have to be able to actually understand them and use human judgement, rather than thinking One Simple Rule can be applied in every situation without fail to achieve perfection.
> "a free market", by the definition of "no or minimal regulations"
There is no such thing.
A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary. That means the market is regulated by the voluntary choices of all of its participants. And since people won't voluntarily choose to make a trade that doesn't benefit them, a free market will be dominated by win-win, positive sum trades. That's how wealth is created.
It's true that a market can also be regulated by a government. Any such regulation will either force people to make trades they wouldn't otherwise choose to make--which means they are worse off--or will prevent people from making trades they otherwise would choose to make--which means they are worse off.
> far too many self-proclaimed libertarians think that any regulations that "encumber" the market take it farther away from being "free"
No, libertarians think that regulations that come from anything other than the voluntary choices of market participants make us worse off. The logic is simple: I just gave it above.
> there are regulations that help and regulations that harm
Please give a specific example of a government regulation that has helped, as compared with a free market regulated by the voluntary choices of all of its participants.
Exactly. My point sort of the converse: that the upthread comment reflected a set of values that, while grounded in "cyberlibertarian" thought, do not reflect actual market value as measured by an actual market. The libertarians tend to think simultaneously that "The Right to Pursue my Niche Ideas" and "The Supremacy of the Market" are related concepts, and they emphatically aren't.
And in particular that the former tends to be the first thing stomped on by runaway market forces.
> do not reflect actual market value as measured by an actual market.
How does the fact that you can have your music in the cloud, and pay a fair price for that, and I can have my music locally on a USB stick, and pay a fair price for that, not reflect "actual market value as measured by an actual market"?
As for the rest of your post, I'm not sure which "libertarians" you're talking about.
And far, far too many self-proclaimed libertarians think that any regulations that "encumber" the market take it farther away from being "free", when in fact, there are regulations that help and regulations that harm, and you have to be able to actually understand them and use human judgement, rather than thinking One Simple Rule can be applied in every situation without fail to achieve perfection.