Fred Foldvary asks: Were any economists prior to the 1930s for a pure free
market?
To me, that is a strange question in that Adam Smith, for instance,
was not in favor of a pure free market -- he did not expect it in
practice (I can find this cite) and did not advocate it in theory
(see Bk. V of Wealth of Nations). I suspect that Fred's "pure free
marketers" are primarily a post-WW2 Anglo-American phenomenon (except
for a few Lockeans in the late 18th-19th century).
Peter G. Stillman