I am just going to rough this out a bit, and maybe refine it later, or maybe commenters can fix it up for me. I am fond of saying that there is no such thing as “free markets,” and have support on that idea from Dwayne Andreas, former head of Archer Daniels Midland, who said
“There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country.”
Andreas, who (no surprise) is a major donor to “both” political parties, is wrong about that, in my opinion. There are indeed free markets, and as anyone who read the book or saw the movie “The Insider” knows, ADM spent a great deal of executive time trying to avoid those markets. The thing is that free markets scare the pants off of people, and just about everyone is looking for ways to hide out. That is most of the reason there are thousands of lobbyists in Washington, DC – they are looking for special tax treatment, access to the commons, protection from competition.
There are, however, people so weak that they cannot hide away, and so are exposed daily to the grinding mechanism of the free market. The are, in order of weakest to strongest, as I see it at this moment, as follows (the lower the number on the list, the more exposed to free markets):
1. Slaves
2. Indentured servants
3. Unemployed people without benefits
4. Sweatshop workers
5. Migrant agricultural workers
6. Unemployed workers with benefits
7. Non-unionized employees
8. Self-employed craftsmen
9. American unionized employees
10. Unionized employees in countries with strong labor laws
11. Self-employed professionals
12. Employed professionals (athletes, architects, etc)
13. Business executives with small companies
14. Business executives with large companies
15. People who make large fortunes by skill or luck
16. People who marry people who have large fortunes
17. The heirs of people who make large fortunes by skill or luck
Best I can do at this moment. Note that the higher the number on the list, the more inclined people are to support the concept of free markets, until you reach the ultimate absurdity: The Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, the Walton Family, George H.W. and W. Bush, and Steve Forbes, #17’s all, trust babies all, and firm believers in free markets, one and all.
Piece of Mindful 
Vulnerability is a key element in estimating how free anything is. Markets are no different. Market players fear “exposure,” “uncertainty,” and ultimately, death. To overcome fear, manipulation is justified. With enough manipulation you eliminate competition, dominate the market, and grow, and grow, like cancer. In free systems resemble “natural” systems, or imitate natural systems. There is a high rate of failure. Few infants reach maturity. We have defied nature long enough. When the vulnerable refuse to serve, to labor, to produce for the oligarchs, we can restart the system. It will take everyone to stop at once, and demand justice. Freedom without justice isn’t working that well.
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How about black marketeers, or drug dealers? Where do they fit in?
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They sure do. Thanks. The streets of the big cities are classic free markets.
Also I need to include monopoly capitalists. Much work to do here.
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I guess it comes down to how you define free. After all, slavery cannot exist in a free market, because it is the government that defines who is a slave. While in some societies this is a result of an enforced contract, in most situations that has not been the case, or there is a distinction between a ‘voluntary’ slave and one who is enslaved for political, racial, or religious reasons.
Any ‘free’ market requires the violent (if uniformed) enforcement of contracts. Drug dealers live in a sort of anarchic market – the ability to guarantee that an agreement is followed is based only on one’s own leverage over another party. I think the great fallacy that is pushed is that the set of contracts our government agrees to enforce is somehow ‘natural’ or ‘rational’.
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It’s not that complicated. It’s merely power. People with unrestrained power abuse it. Free markets, as used these days means absence of government interference, meaning no outside interference in power relationships. In that environment, we end up with slavery as surely as the little lamb followed Mary.
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The govt. shut Mary down. What the wolves didn’t eat were confiscated due to unfiled lambing permits.
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No Government Protection to protect your lambs from wolves? See Swede? You want protection, not freedom.
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Drug dealers do participate in a free market mode.
Just ask Dan, the pickup philosopher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF-CgAS4U-A
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Deregulation, defunding agency watchdogs, and privatization of public domain is neoliberal bipartisanship. Free markets operate in spite of these primary constituent elements of our corporate-state system. Micro-business is all that is left of free enterprise. The local, state and federal tax code is brutal on the self-employed. All the incessant chatter about “creating jobs” is rubbish.
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