why there's never been a free market and never will be

     cash in hand is the nearest to a free market and even this is regulated

Markets have been regulated from the beginning.

Markets other than barter that use some form of exchange require a formal financial system to regulate the flow of savings, investment, the amount of exchange (money) in circulation, its value and its manufacture.

According to classical economics, interest is supposed to balance the demand for investment and savings. Therefore interest should fluctuate with the supply and demand of investment. This can't happen in practise under a system of financial control.

Savers reduce their current spending ability in anticipation of the need for money in the future. This means savers need liquidity. (Will Hutton, The Revolution That Never Was)

Investors need long term stability or illiquidity of money provided by savers.

This and other factors will lead to crises. When the financial system hits a big enough crisis the state steps in. The first measure the state will take will be to adjust interest rates. Next, it will increase or decrease the money supply.

The fact that markets need a formal and regulated financial system and that the financial system needs state aid from time to time means there can only be a limited free market. The market is limited in scope and time.

Markets are inherently cyclical becoming freer on the upswing and more regulated on the downslide.

Keynes recognised this.

Keynes wasn't the first to record this, a few years earlier Marxist economist Michel Kalecki wrote an analysis almost identical to that of Keynes' General Theory (An Attempt at the Theory of the Business Cycle 1933).

The British economist Alexander Cairncross was a student of Keynes and he advised the Chinese government how to build the successful demand based economy they have now. The Chinese government may call themselves communists but they operate a solid Keynesian system. The demand came from Britain and America. 

The growth and success of China is a direct result of Thatcherism

In Britain ex-bankers like Sunak and Javid, who should know better, are harking back to the failed and failed again 19th century ideology that we can still call Thatcherism.

Why no 'common good' hinders Keynesian measures in UK and US

 

A problem with introducing Keynesian or socialist measures in the UK is there's little to no experience of the 'common good'.

Any notion of 'common good' in the UK is the sum of private gain, commercial interest and individual actions.

The underlying 18th/19th century based ideology of the British is individualism, individual action and individual responsibility. This was exported with even more veracity to North America.

The writers whose work explored the concept of individual action and rational individual decision making have become the cultural norm. This is the case even though their ideas are generally relegated to their historical time and context.

There's a group of alt-right think tanks in the UK and the US who firmly believe in this defunct ideology and the notion of free markets that go with it. Most of the current government ministers are products of and have been spawned into leadership positions from these alt-right groups. The 

The UK is in a dangerous situation because we need to pull together but the government is encouraging us to pull apart.

Should Labour help the LibDems win more seats?

During the early years of the Labour Party, Labour and the Liberals cooperated to win parliamentary seats. The small group of Labour MPs cooperated with the liberals in Parliament against the Tories. Did they co-operate too much?

Ben Tillett thought so. he said the party has no teeth no claws and has lost its growl.

He argued that labour should stop supporting the liberals (so much) and start fighting unemployment.

Ramsay MacDonald at this time was a kind of secretary chairman and I think an unofficial leader. his strategy was to help the liberals so that the liberals would help labour get more MPs in the future. In this way, the Labour Party would have a much bigger representation in Parliament.

Perhaps McDonald's strategy worked?

I wonder...

Did Ramsay MacDonald have a bigger input to the development of the Labour Party that he's given credit for?

Would Ben Tillett's observations be quite pertinent now?

Should labour help the liberals again, in reverse this time? That is should Labour help the liberals get more MPs where they have a better chance of ousting a Conservative?