The free market has many advantages that we are all familiar with. When demand exceeds supply, companies expand by hiring more people. The competition for labor drives wages higher. The tax base increases which helps fund social programs. When supply exceeds demand, companies may layoff people, but they will also compete with other like companies by lowering prices too. This is the "Darwinian" part of the market because it affects the poor more than others but it also rids us of companies not equipped to survive and leaves us with strong companies best suited to lead us out of a recession. But, as you ask, what are the disadvantages of a free market system. One of them is the natural economic cycle of boom or recession. Another is the tendancy for companies to try to control the market by monopolizing it so they can set prices versus the market setting prices. Globalization is the free market at its best and worse. I often wonder how some people shout "free market" out of one side of their mouth, and "buy American" out of the other.
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