That is one thing, and it is probably useful to some degree - i’m not going to say its not, or dismiss academic abstraction. It has its uses! but also limitations - so its simply about being realistic about that.

We can then say, that if there was perfect information, if there was freedom to trade and no social restrictions, then x y z. And that’s a fair enough point.

Of course the difficulty is when it is translated into policy thinking - with people forgetting that the underlying assumptions made by academics- were just that - assumptions.

And if we do want to approximate reality, then we might need to consider the fact that e.g. there is no perfect information - and might it mean for our analysis?

i think the conventional idea is that yes - its about goods and ’services’ and not about the free movement of people.

personally i understand the ‘market’ to be more than just “economic” transactions because i see the ‘transaction’ as involving something more i.e. social dynamics.

so, given that, i don’t really know what ’services’ are if they don’t somehow involve ‘people’ in some way, (i know economists refer to services as somehow not involving people, something mechanized perhaps!) It all depends on what people are thinking of i suppose, or how they are conceptualising “services”. Artists performers, academics, consultants, well sure you could offer up your services without being there in person, but for live performances, meetings, shows, one might need to be there in person,sometimes anyway. ( these days with the net it is much easier to be able to actually trade with people across the world though the physical networking aspect of business doesn’t seem to be going away as much as the net utopianists would have us think)

I guess when i think market i think conceptually more like the idea of the original Greek ‘agora’. and then, the electronic equivalent is like the e-agora.

in any case, the reality is, that global companies who do offer ’services’ - like the global M&A lawyers, investment advice providers, brokers etc. all do travel the world - including the ones who do need visas to go places -because they are working for ‘recognised’ institutions and it is acknowledged that they have to travel for work - so you get all the right forms and you jump through all the right hoops and you get through. ( say like i do when i used to travel for work, or my dad did as an academic).

Or if you’re an individual, if you’re rich enough, or move in the right circles, then again, the borders don’t really matter - they become formalities.

My point is simply that all of these things are about the ability to make social negotiations/agreements of some kind, and there are structural barriers and social barriers to ‘free interaction’ if you will. ( which is for me - the wider aspect in which i situate the free ‘market’, to make it a bit more clear where i’m coming from)

in the end, you might not go yourself, in person, but in order to get access, to get yourself in the position where people will ‘trade’ with you, or any of these things, you have to deal with social institutions.

Also i think this whole thing depends on what people understand to be ‘free’. From my perspective, what i’m interested in - from a libertarian perspective - is a situation where individuals can easily trade their skills/knowledge/whatever with other individuals who want their skills/knowledge etc. wherever they are, whoever they are. These days we say we favour ‘enterprise’ but we really mean big business, which usually has the cartel-like power and ability to get the ’special’ treatment they do, from national governments, and from supranational institutions like the WTO, all the tax cuts, all the lobbying potential etc. So for me - free - means easier for anyone to “enter”/participate in, not just people with connections and the strings to pull.

i daresay given all this, there probably will never be a ‘truly’ free market as i see it, still, we can try and get as close as we can perhaps.