Good take!

When we analyze whether a particular region is a free market, or to get a sense of the degree to which it is a free market, I think we can start with a few basic prerequisites:

1. The user/owner of the means of production or the goods produced with them is able to exchange what he owns or produced with other people - land, capital, resources, raw materials, consumer goods, production goods, etc.

2. This exchange happens at prices that both parties agree upon

3. The user/owner has the ultimate say in how his means of production is used - he decides what to produce, or not produce, when to produce, and in what quantity

4. Property titles and contracts regarding property titles are honoured and restitution mechanisms exist in case of violations

5. The money - medium of exchange - that people use holds its value/purchasing power over a long period of time and is easily exchangeable. And when it doesn't, people have the ability to shift to something else.

6. The ultimate form of ownership - ownership of self - is respected. One's body and fruits of one's labour exerted with one's body is safe from harm or being expropriated. And people have the ultimate say in what endeavour they choose to engage in with their selves.

Of course, no country or industry has this state of affairs to the fullest extent. But the degree to which these perquisites exist in a particular region, country or industry - big or small, private or public, capitalist, socialist or communist, democracy, oligarchy or autocracy - whatever the name is attached to it by narratives and storytelling by the media, is the degree to which it is a free market

Basically, lot of words to say that the degree to which property rights are respected determines how much of a free market a particular region is.

And it will also determine the degree to which we see economic growth, productivity and an increase in standard of living in that country or industry.