The United States is considered the world’s premier free-market economy. Its economic output is greater than any other country that has a free market. 1 The U.S. free market depends on capitalism to thrive. The law of demand and supply sets prices and distributes goods and services.

What Is Capitalism? Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market—known as a market economy—rather than through central planning—known as a planned economy or command economy.

The free market is an economic system based on supply and demand with little or no government control. Free markets are characterized by a spontaneous and decentralized order of arrangements through which individuals make economic decisions.

A capitalist economy and a free market economy are two types of economic systems. Capitalism is focused on the creation of wealth and ownership of capital and factors of production, whereas a free market system is focused on the exchange of wealth or goods and services.

It contributes to economic growth and transparency. It ensures competitive markets. Consumers’ voices are heard in that their decisions determine what products or services are in demand. Supply and demand create competition, which helps ensure that the best goods or services are provided to consumers at a lower price.

Free markets allow the decisions of millions of individuals to decide the price of a product based on a vote. When demand gets too high, production and/or prices are increased to meet supply. This is more efficient than under government intervention as it allows prices and supply to be dictated by demand.

Without government intervention, firms can exploit monopoly power to pay low wages to workers and charge high prices to consumers. Government intervention can regulate monopolies and promote competition. Therefore government intervention can promote greater equality of income, which is perceived as fairer.

There are benefits and drawbacks to command economy structures. Command economy advantages include low levels of inequality and unemployment, and the common good replacing profit as the primary incentive of production. Command economy disadvantages include lack of competition and lack of efficiency.

Consumers cannot choose and only those goods and services are produced which are decided by the government. Lack of profit motive may lead to firms being inefficient. Lot of time and money is wasted in communicating instructions from the government to the firms.

The goal of such an economic system would be to achieve conscious control over the economy by the population, specifically so that the use of the surplus product is controlled by the producers. The specific forms of planning proposed for socialism and their feasibility are subjects of the socialist calculation debate.