Why do you think no country has a pure free market economy?

Answer 1

Government intervention allows coordination of inputs necessary to solve some types of collective action problems. Additionally, the existence of such intervention also enables the manipulation of economic distribution to the ends of those in power for their own gain. A structural incentive exists to exploit such distributions.

Answer 2

Put simply, greed and selfishness and profits are far more powerful, dominating, and over-riding desires than a concern for your fellow-man and selflessness and a love/ socialism-type attitude to others. There is also a 'win at all costs/ crush the loser' attitude instead of a 'win/win' attitude.

There are 'free-market economies' in the world, and it all sounds good until you read the fine-print of the agreement: you will find that really means that they are "free"- market economies . There are two individual examples of this :
1. A sticker on some product that shouts in big, bold letters "FREE" but the small-print says you have to buy XYZ or spend whatever to get it, so it is not free at all.
2. Political promises - you must read the fine-print.

A nation is only a collection of families, and just as families are fiercely-protective of their own but woe-betide anyone who attacks that family, so are nations. Or at least, nation-states should be: in an ideal world every nation would treat everyone else the same.

Back in the real world, the bigger and more-powerful and more-ruthless government/nation/business cowes the opposition , and it doesn't help if your own government is only concerned about placating certain lobby-groups, is arrogant, stupid, badly-advised, naive, and doesn't want to let people know the fine-print.

However, today one of the additional reasons 'there are no pure free markets economies in the world' is because of trans-national/supra-national business corporations which are beholden to no particular country and owe no allegiance to to anyone except themselves and their shareholders.

Answer 3

This is a very good question, and there are arguments both for and against. The only problem with a completely free economy these days, in my opinion, exist within the loopholes of the Antitrust laws. These laws were placed into effect in order to keep the "big boys" from cornering the market and effectively getting rid of all meaningful competition. In other words, they are SUPPOSED to prevent monopolization of an industry. The loopholes of which I speak are seen when large companies, in order to escape crossing the monopoly "line", form subsidiary companies. In other words they form similar companies with different board members, etc., but the money still flows back to them. To make my long answer short, the free market would, in theory, control pricing and quality based on consumer demand; but if the larger corporations can corner a market, this takes away the competition that gives consumers the choice (read: POWER) to choose and affect quality and pricing. It gives an unfair advantage to the larger producers and hurts the consumer. The true problem is that, like America USED to be able to do, the free economic principal relies on mankind's honesty and sincere desire to provide a high-quality product/service to its consumer. Nowadays it seems impractical to trust man generally in this way. It is the best economic model, though.... in theory.

Answer 4

Because the government can't tax everything like they can in the economy we have today.