You know how people often argue "big" government vs. "small" government? Well, there are numerous problems with that frame of debate, but the most devastating one is that the entire thing is a screaming example of a false duality.
Defenders of the "ideal free market" argue government interference is bad. Opponents argue that government intervention is not only good but also necessary.
Both sides are completely missing the big picture.
All post-hunter-gather, scarcity-oriented societies revolve around their respective economic system. Just as the feudalist societies revolved around land and the relationships and ownerships associated with it, so do today's societies (with the arguable exception of the few remaining hunter-gather societies) revolve around businesses and industries. The government, therefore, is an extension of the market. To argue, as the aforementioned false duality does, that the government and market are somehow completely separate entities is not only ridiculous, but also dangerously obfuscating.
Advocates of the state fail to recognize that the state both intervenes regularly and inevitably exists to serve the dominant players and monopolies of the market, as well as defend the capitalist social order and all its values. Meanwhile, the "free market" advocates fail to recognize that the state is a natural extension of the market and that, by the rules and standards of the competition, businesses would be insane NOT to use the state for their own benefit.
Furthermore, with this information in mind, I will refute a commonfallacy that is sadly all too pervasive today: the "free market" is not "free" in the sense that most people think it is. To say the market is "free" really means that the dominant players in it are "free" to suppress competition, grab whatever resources they can find (up to and including the entire earth and human beings), exploit whatever they can for their own benefit, and basically do whatever they want and get away with it.
Many argue that the cartels and monopolies like those we see today have gone too far, and that they are some kind of "distortion" of the free market.
I'm sorry, but that argument is complete bullshit. Competition for any and every advantage one can get (up to and including one's own survival) inherently leads to a minority dominating the majority.
For the icing on the cake, I leave those still in disagreement with a question:
Where do you think the game MONOPOLY came from?
I rest my case.
