As the imposter dies its long and painful death, the free market awakens from its slumber - outstretching its invisible hand.

In my lifetime, I am yet to witness the power of a fully-fledged free market. For centuries governments, central banks, big business and religion have suppressed economic and social freedom; imposing the idea that the individual must serve their society in a particular way. I disagree with this thought. We should live in a society designed to accentuate our individual talents; allowing us to pursue our passions. Unfortunately, this is not the case; but fortunately, it won’t be for long. I foresee a new system emerging; quietly and slowly - yet gaining traction and momentum.

Energy and information are on two sides of the same coin.

I could start at the dawn of time, but instead, I will start at the dawn of the internet. Amongst other applications, the internet is the best medium for efficient exchange of information. The nature of this efficiency is threefold - fast, cheap and convenient. Gone is the day of the encyclopedia and postal letter. We all have access to the vastest knowledge pool in human history and it doesn’t stop there. We have also obtained an excellent environment for creativity and invention. The internet has become the platform for the free market to supply the demand for innovation.

Being ‘at your fingertips’ no longer means out of grasp.

The first innovation I will discuss is ‘peer to peer’ sharing. This idea gives users the freedom to exchange information via the internet without requiring the assistance of a centralized system. On one hand, if governments deemed the data transfer unlawful, the risk of responsibility is spread among peers; making it difficult to prosecute a single perpetrator. On the other hand, a centralized system may have access to all the data transferred - a peer to peer system avoids this; ensuring the security of information. When implemented with encryption, peer to peer sharing is a low risk, secure environment; giving the free market the ability to exchange information without restraint.

The open-source community does Christianity better than the church.

I am a big advocate for information being open-sourced. People who are willing to give free access to their intellectual property are the most generous as they are giving away their most valuable asset; ideas. There are incentives to this generosity, though. Open-sourcing ideas checkmates thieves and patent sharks from stealing them and claiming them for themselves. Furthermore, it allows the community to input into the product and improves it. For myself, perhaps the most attractive aspect of open source products is transparency. By using an open-source product, you can have confidence that the community has checked the integrity of its functionality and that it is exactly as promised. As open-sourced products continue to improve in quality, the free market is shifting into this space.

The free market is Democracy with your wallet.

Traditionally, capitalism has failed when individuals have brilliant ideas but no capital to bring it to fruition. Once again, the free market has given us the answer in the form of crowdfunding. The crowdfunding platform gives entrepreneurs an affordable opportunity to express their ideas so backers (people with funds) can support them if it is deemed worthy. Therefore the gap between the haves and the have-nots is bridged; allowing the free market to reward people for their effort and intellect.

It is the limit on the supply that makes money valuable.

The final factor required for a functioning free market is a strong decentralized currency. This may seem, at first, like an oxymoron as currencies generally go rogue without centralization. A new type of currency has emerged wherein it may obtain its integrity without centralisation. This phenomenon is known as cryptocurrencies. With the blockchain and transaction verification, cryptocurrencies avoid the risk of central banks abusing their power. The technology is created in such a way that inflation is near impossible - avoiding the occurrence of unjust wealth transfer through currency expansion. The cryptocurrency system is designed in such a way that exponential work, in the form of computer processing power, is required to produce more units of currency. Further to this, the blockchain technology used may be completely anonymous; allowing the possibility for a private transfer. Therefore, we can buy and sell whatever we want with the confidence that our wealth is safe when it is stored in the cryptocurrency.

Let the losers lose and the winners win!

The platform for a free marketplace is already available to us; it just needs customers. Though it may need some work, the more it’s used: the better it will become. When the world escapes the grasp of centralized systems and regulators, it obtains the ability to agree on fair prices based on supply and demand. Ideas may become products faster and customers may decide on what they want before it exists. When a market has true freedom of price and information, people can make correct and educated decisions on their purchases; facilitating humanity’s swift progression.