Reply #9: A "Free Market" per Adam Smith [View All]

[WyLoochka]

Is a market in which all costs of doing business are "internalized" ie paid by the businesses as opposed to "externalized" ie paid by taxpayers.

Pollution and environmental clean-up paid for by the taxpayers is a gigantic welfare subsidy to business and is the antithesis of a true "free market."

It is also very anti-competitive (competition being another indispensable characteristic of a Smith defined free market). Externalization of costs shores up existing bad businesses making it extrememly difficult, if not downright impossible, for good businesses which might be inclined to pay their own way to compete.

We do not have anything even close to a "free market" as defined by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations. We have the exact opposite.