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I will let the certified historians address the first two of Mircea Pauca's  
questions and will confine my observations to the idea of "markets" with  
and without the tendentious adjective "free."  The origins of this  
adjective seem less important than the hopeful normative message its use  
seems to inspire in particular circles.  All markets are simply purposeful  
constructs to mediate the exchange of ownership of future net value.  These  
constructs take various forms and attributes in particular settings  
depending on momentary--but assuredly evolving--perceptions of purpose and  
necessity.   Markets are not ends but instruments.  For some purposes they  
can be agreeable instruments.  For other purposes they can be most  
disagreeable. 
 
The adjective "free" adds nothing to the conversation except--as above--the  
fervent hope by some that its frequent use will conduce to the fiction that  
markets are inherent in the human condition and otherwise meddlesome  
governments must be kept at bay.  The situation is not different from the  
use of laissez faire as an incantation by those whose current social and  
economic advantage is reinforced and validated by the existing structure of  
institutional arrangements.  Here use of the French is a suitable guise for  
what they are too embarrassed to advocate in their native tongue. 
 
Dan Bromley 
 
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