> In reality, "a customer" is whoever pays the most money for something you are selling. In the modern world, this would be corporations and rich individuals, not "the people".
If this were true, corporations and rich individuals would own everything. They don't. Also, if it were true, nobody but corporations and rich individuals would be able to buy anything. Are you having trouble buying groceries because corporations and rich individuals have snapped them all up?
The correct definition of "customer" is "anyone who pays any price for what you are selling, that you are willing to sell it for". As long as the item is worth less to you and more to the customer than a price you can both agree on, the transaction is a mutual gain for both of you.
In a true free market, if there are no such customers--because what you're selling isn't worth enough to any of them to pay a price you are willing to accept--then you go out of business. Since in such a market you can't force anyone to buy your product--they only will if it's worth more to them than what they pay--you can only stay in business by providing mutual gain. That principle would apply just as well to services like law enforcement, if they were provided in a true free market.
> If this were true, corporations and rich individuals would own everything. They don't.
Uh, there is very little they don't own or control, to be honest. Even if they didn't, assuming the current trend of privatizing even the most essential services continues, it will be the case in just a couple of decades.
> Are you having trouble buying groceries because corporations and rich individuals have snapped them all up?
Am I having trouble buying some groceries, because rich people have pushed prices so high, or in some cases because corporations buy all of them in order to resell them in a different, more expensive form? Why, yes. But I digress.
> In a true free market, if there are no such customers--because what you're selling isn't worth enough to any of them to pay a price you are willing to accept--then you go out of business.
Do you seriously think a service like TSA is not useful to any corporation? Like franchise shops in airport lounges selling bottles of water at three times the market price...
Also, your reasoning completely ignores forces, like advertising, which are used to create artificial demand. They would still exist in a free market, probably even more so (because competition would be even harder).
> That principle would apply just as well to services like law enforcement, if they were provided in a true free market.
Rich people would enjoy premium protection at premium prices, and poor people would receive little or no protection because they cannot afford more. Wouldn't that be fun, eh? Reminds me of the US healthcare market, that other miracle of the Free Market.
Do you really think the US healthcare market is a shining example of the Free Market Gone Wrong? The US health system is anything but free market, the government has its influence at every level. To start off with, let's pick on a topic often picked on here, patents: http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf After you've read that, let's note that I can't as a chemical manufacturer produce any drug I want at any quantity I want and sell it, and as a consumer I can't buy any drug I want even out-of-country, where in a free market I could do both these things. People die waiting for new drugs or procedures to go through the process, it's not uncommon for people to go out of country to a US-trained doctor to have the procedure/treatment because it's illegal in the US. Some free market we have.
People die because they cannot afford insurance. Some people will never be able to afford any insurance because the price they can pay will always be zero.
Thinking everything in life can be self-regulated by market forces is madness. What next, should we buy and sell the right to vote? The right to pray? Why not the right of property itself? Or the right to live?
Hold on, you didn't address my point. Do you really think the US system is an example of the free market naturally at work and at failure? Given that you've responded can I assume you read the linked PDF so that we have a broader base of shared context?
You seem to be putting words into my mouth; I may indeed believe that for a world where market forces are the only forces, that world is a better one than our current world, but I don't see how you would arrive at that from my above comment alone. There are plenty of people who see the obvious problems that for instance patents in the health industry cause yet don't want to remove all regulation or government influence in the industry. For my own views of the FDA specifically, I think it's important to have an agency whose word the public can trust that a particular drug or whatever is "safe". But such an agency doesn't have to be public, and in any case its power should closer resemble the ESRB's power rather than the FDA's current power (which unless I missed something over the past decade has included the power to arrest anyone at gunpoint who tries to sell an orange on the premise that it prevents a disease like scurvy).
Since you did ask it, this rhetorical question does have an interesting answer you're probably not aware of:
> What next, should we buy and sell the right to vote?
If this were true, corporations and rich individuals would own everything. They don't. Also, if it were true, nobody but corporations and rich individuals would be able to buy anything. Are you having trouble buying groceries because corporations and rich individuals have snapped them all up?
The correct definition of "customer" is "anyone who pays any price for what you are selling, that you are willing to sell it for". As long as the item is worth less to you and more to the customer than a price you can both agree on, the transaction is a mutual gain for both of you.
In a true free market, if there are no such customers--because what you're selling isn't worth enough to any of them to pay a price you are willing to accept--then you go out of business. Since in such a market you can't force anyone to buy your product--they only will if it's worth more to them than what they pay--you can only stay in business by providing mutual gain. That principle would apply just as well to services like law enforcement, if they were provided in a true free market.