&gt; Nothing you say in any way establishes that regulation by government works better than regulation by free market participants. All you&#x27;re doing is describing what government regulation does.<p>Regulation by free market participants? Is that a joke? You mean like rating agencies giving AAA ratings to subprime CDOs? Free markets do not self regulate, they simply don&#x27;t exist to do that. Free markets don&#x27;t have foresight or a self preservation instincts, why exactly would they self regulate? 
Monopolies, strange things, pure free markets inevitably lead to monopolies and monopolies inevitably destroy free markets.<p>I wonder, in your ideal world, would you do a microbial test on every milk carton you buy? I guess not, you would vote with your money, right? You would buy from trusted brands which have their milk tested by a third party, like a private milk rating agency. I bet you would only buy AAA milk ;). But what if all the milk producers would get together and get to an understanding that none of them will ever rate their milk and thus save themselves a lot of money? Where would you buy your milk now? You would grow your own cows, produce artisan milk? Multiply that for all the products you consume, how much effort would you need to expend in order to participate (and not get completely trashed) in a market unregulated by the government?<p>&gt; Government regulators do not give or receive anything as part of the transaction, which is the definition of &quot;a party to the transaction&quot;.<p>Governments are elected and as such they represent the people and the peoples will, thus any terms added by the government are in fact terms added by those participating in the transaction. The timing when the terms are added doesn&#x27;t matter.<p>&gt; And those terms are not voluntarily chosen by the parties;<p>Yes they are, when I buy milk, one of my terms is that it should have microbial content below dangerous levels as stated in the regulation related to microbial content of the milk.<p>&gt; They were side effects of markets that were meddled with by governments in different ways than governments meddle now.<p>Really? I suppose you have an example to back that up? While you think of one, I suggest reading about working conditions and child labor during the industrial revolution.<p>&gt; Slavery, for example, was clearly not the result of a free market transaction; the slaves didn&#x27;t voluntarily agree to be slaves. It could only exist because governments legitimized the taking of slaves by force.<p>WAT? Before slavery, slavery was illegal? And the slaves didn&#x27;t voluntarily agree to be slaves, as opposed to the slaves who voluntarily agree to be slaves?