The problem with free markets is, that the philosophy only works if there is a power balance between dealer and customer. In the times of a John Locke (I am sure you are familiar with his name and his ideas), that was a given.
But since that time a lot has changed. Businesses are no longer small and in the hand of a single person or family but multi billion dollar corporations. This has created a major shift of the power towards these corporations and the individual person as a customer is disadvantaged.
Not only can big corporations afford expensive law suites that no individual customer could finance, they also have lawyers and marketeing specialists to create all sorts of misleading marketing material which however is still right on the border of the legal side of things.
Add to that the increased complexity of today`s products and as a customer you have absolutely no chance if the government is not stepping in to re-establish the power balance. That created warranty regulations for example.
The issue is even worse when you look at how different legal systems operate.
In Europe we have a system where manufacturers must for example proof the safety of a product before it can be sold.
In the US, you can bring to market even unsafe products, but unlike Europe, the US have so called punitive damages.
Meaning in Europe you only get reimbursed for the actual damage your product has caused. If for example someone is injured by a bad or defective product for which the manufacturer is responsible, the manufacturer only has to pay for that person`s damages.
In the US, a jury will usually add a significant amount of money on top of that, the so called "punitive damage" to deter businesses from doing this again. European legal systems do not have that element.
That is one of the reasons why the TTIP treaty was so dangerous. US companies could have supplied all sorts of really bad products that cause harm to Europe without having to first undergo the safety checks and regulations. And if something happened to a customer, they would not have been under the threat of high punitive damage claims. The population of Europe would in fact have become the involuntary beta testers for all sorts of US products which the companies would not dare to bring to market in the US.
As you see from above examples, free market is a nice theory, but in todays compex and globalised world, regulations are absolutely necessary. The constitution in Germany for example guarantees all sorts of rights to the individual and the state is under obligation to protect its citizens. But no such rule exists for protecting business corporations.
