Not by our current implementation. A free-market can approach a proxy of free with a few important caveats and ridden of foregone conclusions.
First, the freedom in free cannot be defined as absolutism, for an absolutism of freedom is by definition not free. Second, a market is a consequence of a marketplace of economic activity. Confounding a market with a marketplace is confounding consequence with cause, leading to the depravity of reason.
So, to achieve self-regulating marketplaces based on the kind of freedom that spawns dynamic meritocracies, one must redefine the definition of freedom from stale absolutism to a dynamic relativity theory. To learn how, start reading about Einstein’s theory of relativity, or learn about mine.
And then there is freedom’s inevitable paradox, rules needed to protect the pursuit of individual freedoms from damaging the trust in collective freedom.
Based on the aforementioned, the cheap and wide-spread use of the economic catchphrase “free-market,” even by some reputable economists, does not quite do the term justice. Precisely because its principles have been so poorly defined is the economic outcomes of “free-markets” so disappointing and must their composition and validity be scrutinized, as your question rightfully indicates.
Only when marketplaces are subjugated to a freedom of freedom can the outcome of a “free-market” be deemed an accurate representation of actual freedom.
