free market

Examples of free market in the following topics:

• Classical Liberalism

  • Classical liberalism is a political philosophy committed to limited government, the rule of law, individual liberties, and free markets.
  • These liberties include freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.
  • Classical liberalism determined that individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers.
  • In a free market, labor and capital would therefore receive the greatest possible reward, while production would be organized efficiently to meet consumer demand.
  • Classical liberals extended protection of the country to protection of overseas markets through armed intervention.

• Laissez-Faire and the Supreme Court

  • Laissez-faire refers to an economic environment in which transactions between private parties are free from government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies.
  • In a similar vein, Adam Smith viewed the economy as a natural system and the market as an organic part of that system.
  • Smith saw laissez-faire as a moral program, and the market its instrument to ensure men the rights of natural law.
  • By extension, free markets become a reflection of the natural system of liberty.

• A Market Society

  • The Market Revolution of the early nineteenth century saw advances in technology, transportation, communication, and manufacturing.
  • During the Market Revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century, traditional modes of commerce were made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry.
  • Construction of the Erie Canal connected western agricultural markets to the manufacturing centers of the Northeast, and the development of steamboats and railroads allowed for much greater mobility between markets.
  • Image of an old advertisement from Sutton & Co., with the words "Free Trade" across the front.
  • American society became increasingly subject to broad market forces in the early nineteenth century.

• The Internationalization of the United States

  • Free trade, which is a component of globalization, is a policy followed by many international markets in which countries' governments do not restrict imports from, or exports to, other countries.
  • However, many in the United States oppose free trade for a variety of reasons.
  • Free trade is often opposed by domestic industries that would have their profits and market share reduced by lower prices for imported goods.
  • Proponents of socialism frequently oppose free trade on the ground that it allows maximum exploitation of workers by capital: the process of free trade is seen as an end-run around workers' rights and laws that protect individual liberty.
  • The idea of free trade is opposed by many anti-globalization groups, based on the assertion that free trade agreements generally do not increase the economic freedom of the poor or the working class, and frequently make the poor even poorer.

• Race and Opportunity

  • Despite their rising numbers, free African Americans in the North faced discrimination and limited opportunity.
  • During the Market Revolution, slaveholders and the commodity crops of the South had a strong influence on U.S. politics and the country's economy; for example, New York City's economy was closely tied to the South through shipping and manufacturing.
  • By 1819, there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism in the United States.
  • Many of these careers required large capital investments that most free African Americans could not afford.
  • Free African American males enjoyed wider employment opportunities than free African American females, who were largely confined to domestic occupations.

• Abolitionists and the American Ideal

  • The abolitionist movement was further strengthened by the efforts of free African Americans, especially in the black church, who argued that the old biblical justifications for slavery contradicted the New Testament.
  • The Republican Party wanted to achieve the gradual extinction of slavery by market forces, based on the belief that free labor was superior to slave labor. 
  • Believing that restricting slavery to the South and refusing to let it expand would eventually cause the institution to die out, the party adopted  a "free soil" platform. 
  • During the 1820s and 30s, the American Colonization Society (ACS, or the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America) was the primary advocate of returning free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa.
  • In 1821, the ACS established the colony of Liberia in Africa and assisted the emigration of thousands of former African-American slaves and free blacks (with legislated limits) from the United States.

• White Society in the South

  • Although a minority of free Southerners owned slaves (and, in turn, similarly small proportion within these slaveholders owned the vast majority of slaves), Southerners of all classes nevertheless defended the institution of slavery as the cornerstone of their social order, threatened by the rise of free labor abolitionist movements in the Northern states.
  • In 1850 there were around 350,000 slaveholders in a total free Southern population of about six million.
  • Second, free small farmers in the South often embraced hysterical racism, making them unlikely agents of internal democratic reforms in the South.
  • Third, many small farmers with a few slaves and yeomen were linked to elite planters through the market economy.
  • Only a small minority of free white Southerners owned plantations in the antebellum era.

• Toward Free Labor

  • It was a system that provided jobs and—most important—transportation for poor young people from the overcrowded labor markets (such as Europe) who wanted to come to labor-short areas (such as America and other colonies), but had no money to pay for it.
  • In colonial North America, farmers, planters, and shopkeepers found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because cash was short and it was so easy for those workers to set up their own farms.
  • At the end of the indenture, the young person was given a new suit of clothes and was free to leave.
  • While it was not passed or even discussed, its existence demonstrates free-labor sentiments in early U.S. society.

• The Open Door Policy

  • The Open Door Policy aimed to keep the Chinese trade market open to all countries on an equal basis.
  • It felt threatened by other powers' much larger spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the country be partitioned.
  • Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China.
  • The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese market.
  • Its stated objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from European intervention and avoid situations which could make the New World a battleground for the Old World powers, so that the United States could exert its own influence undisturbed.

• Whigs and Democrats

  • A primary conflict between Democrats and Whigs revolved around California's admission to the union as a free state, which would upset the sectional balance of power between free and slave states in Congress.
  • The ensuing Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted as a free state, but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law and made no provisions for how other territories could address the slavery issue.
  • Nearly all of their Southern members owned slaves, while the Northeastern Whigs were largely businessmen who sought national unity and a strong national market but cared little about the institution of slavery.
  • Many Northern, antislavery Democrats flocked to the Free-Soil coalition and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party, whereas Southern, proslavery Democrats coalesced to form the Southern Democratic Party.