Hey all,
I’m trying to figure out this question for a paper I’m writing, and it would help if people talked with me a bit about the issue.
I will be writing a long paper on this for school, and I was given the NO side to defend (I have to argue that a free market economy is not necessary for democracy to succeed).
I also have to give real nation examples. …which sucks for the NO side 
Any ideas? Isn’t france sort of non-free market? bleh… 
Well, you could argue that Ancient Greece did not have a free market - yet the Greeks were one of the first (if not the first) socieities where democracy flourished.
Of course, you’ll need to define democracy to bolster your argument - after all, how the ancient Greeks practiced democracy (limited to landed aristocracy) is quite different from how it practiced today in most countries.
India!
eponymous: yea, I think democracy has to be defined as similar to what we know today (free and fair elections, consolidation, etc), so Ancient Greece might not work, but thanks.
Also…India? Really?
Well, you have to define a “Free market.” How free is a free market? Does it have to be complete survival-of-the-fittest, or can it be a typical Western nation with mostly free enterprise but a lot of government inbtervention? Is the United States a free market even though the agricultural market doesn’t even approach being a true free market? There’s a lot of capitalism and free trade in India so I’m not sure how it qualifies as an exception.
Yes, I guess it would have to be a country that has absolutely no free-market, which is why this is hard because I think that democracy cannot exist without such a thing…but I could be wrong.
bump…someone help me lol