Open Markets And Political Freedom Analysis

Question 1: Is there a relationship between open markets and political freedom?

I think that the there is a relationship between open markets and political freedom. Open markets are defined as an unrestricted market with free access by and competition of buyers and sellers. This is a competitive market and need people to participate in this market. According to the Commanding of Heights notes, Milton Friedman was asked why are free markets and freedom inseparable. His first response to that question was that “freedom requires individuals to be free to use their own resources in their own way, and modern society requires cooperation among a large number of people”. He is talking about how people being free and being allowed to invest in things
If there wasn’t political freedom, in my opinion, open markets would not exist because everything would be controlled by the government in which the market wouldn’t need to be open because no one could participate in the market without going through the government. This is one reason why I think the relationship is so important between open markets and political freedom. Another question that was asked to Friedman was “Why, in your view, is private property so central to freedom?” He responded by saying, ”because the only way in which you can be free to bring your knowledge to bear in your particular way is by controlling your property. If you don't control your property, if somebody else controls it, they're going to decide what to do with it, and you have no possibility of exercising influence on it.” This goes back to what I said about how if the government controlled people in a way that they didn’t have the freedom to participate in the open markets, this would kill the open markets because there would be none because going off what Friedman said, open markets are caused by people having the freedom to own things and if that freedom is taking away,
During 1914, capital was free to flow from one country to another and this made the market flourish. Trade was going on smoothly between the United states and European countries as well as many other participating markets. When World War I started, this all changed because of Europe. The European market had to become a closed exchanged and their main focus was the war. This caused the stock market to shut down and it was crazy. According to Bryan Taylors Articled titled “Desperate Traders Managed To Keep Trading During The World War I Stock Market Shutdown”, the war drove stock prices down. He says in his article that even though stocks could not be traded on the main exchanges, over the counter markets replaced for those who were desperate enough to sell. During this time, people wanted their money and most were looking to sell in case the stock market would collapse and they wouldn’t get to see that money forever so this led to the decline in the prices of share prices. Taylor states that “in Europe, the problem of preventing catastrophic declines in stock prices was solved by putting a floor on share prices.” This means that no matter how desperate someone was, they could not sell shares below a certain price so this made sure the European market didn’t collapse. Taylor also states that “the government also placed restrictions on capital, limiting or