I don't understand people who use subsidies and free market in the same phrase. If there are subsidies then it's pretty clear the government has gotten involved, no? Instead of worrying about "having to pass a law to ban collecting Helium" or whatever, how about you worry about having the government not give those subsidies in the first place. Wouldn't that be easier?
I'm not talking about hypothetical perfectly free market, that neither exists nor we'd really want to have it. I'm talking about reality - businesses in bed with politicians. Those subsidies don't get granted themselves, nor they are just whims of government officials. For businesses, it's a tool like any other, to use in competing on the market.
"I'm not talking about hypothetical perfectly free market, that neither exists nor we'd really want to have it. "
Please do not speak for others.
"businesses in bed with politicians"
Isn't that a failure of the law system or, more general, "our democracy" itself? Some corrupt company in XY has no ties with you but government has (at least that's the theory). So how come government (i.e., the people there) is still getting paid by your taxes while they are clearly not acting on your behalf?
Blaming capitalism is like blaming the guy who slept with your wife instead of blaming your wife (and most probably you should also blame yourself to some extent).
"For businesses, it's a tool like any other, to use in competing on the market."
Well, for the businesses receiving a subsidy it's clearly a tool while the businesses and people paying for it much less so.
To sum up, the subsidies you talk about are neither "capitalistic" nor "democratic" so we shouldn't derive conclusions about capitalism or democracy here.
We can very well derive conclusions about the current economic system called "free market" and the current political system called "democracy" but we should agree on the definition first.
