Completely free markets are a utopian concept and do not exist in the real world, ever. There will always be rules and those that secretly usurp and manipulate such to their individual advantage while the majority of participants are unaware and/or ill equipped to rectify the resulting inequities. The 1999 deregulation of banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies (Graham, Leach, Bliley Act) is a recent example of the masses being sold on a utopian concept that creates profits for very few people in the long run while making the majority of participants even more vulnerable in ways that they will never fully comprehend.