I guess it depends where you are in Europe. I'm glad I'm in the US and not in Hungary. http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_giv... Edit: I found it interesting that in http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume... on page 58, about 58% of sampled women in Ireland are in jobs classified as "low skilled non-manual" or "elementary" compared to about 32% for men in medium-to-large businesses, but 22% in small businesses. When your female employee might take 6 months off, paid while doing nothing useful for the company, it's best if the work they would have done can be easily (and cheaply, so that 2X isn't so much greater than X) done by another, eh?
Why? Europe isn't exactly a hotbed of innovation, economic dynamism or growth; and that is largely attributable to the socialist mindset that pervades much of Europe. Although entrepreneurialism is a word that originated in Europe, it is rather hard to find much evidence of it in any meangingful way.
No, but I am suggesting that, in general, free markets lead to growth whereas socialist experiments such as those in Europe tend to fail and lead to a variety of social and economic ills. One just look at the aging population, declining birth rate plus vast social security apparatus in some of these European states to see that they are heading yet again towards disaster.
It's not that you said it in a positive light. It's that you used it as a common noun. The term "free market" is only useful as a comparative, like so: "America has freer markets than India". This lets people know and contextualize what you're saying.
Otherwise, using the term just turns into a competition of politics between Republican shills (ie: you), minarcho-capitalist ("libertarian") ideologues, mutualist anarchists, and socialists on what it means to be a "free market", how "free" a market has to be to qualify for the term, and whether the relative "freedom" or lack thereof of a market matters at all.
I fall into that last camp. There are actually reputable studies showing that given 100% Free markets never occur in reality (perfect competition, perfect information, zero transaction costs were the definition they used), most not-completely-retarded allocation mechanisms other than those are more-or-less as decent as each other; there was basically a 3% allocative-efficiency advantage to the realistically imperfect market over the tested form of central planning.
A mathematician also showed that even perfect theoretical markets can oscillate neverendingly between multiple general equilibriums rather than ever converging to one efficient equilibrium.
In conclusion, stop using the term "free market" outside of meaningful context.
