Even absent government regulation, I still don't see consumers being terribly concerned about the source of their apple. Why? Because the quality of it is reflected by the reputation of the seller. But even if I were to concede the argument for the particular case of food, that does not mean that knowledge of provenance is a prerequisite for a free market.
>You need the other things to move away from the necessity of government regulation
I guess this is the crux of the matter. You are suggesting that transparency must pre-exist a free market, I am suggesting that a free market pre-exists transparency, and when necessary transparency will be demanded by the consumers.
>You are suggesting that transparency must pre-exist a free market, I am suggesting that a free market pre-exists transparency, and when necessary transparency will be demanded by the consumers.
The issue, I think, is that we have a different definition for a free market. A free market, by the definition I am using, functions at peak efficiency and is free from monopoly and large stakeholder or government intervention/regulation. For that to occur, the kind of transparency I'm talking about must theoretically be present.
If transparency came afterward, what happened prior would not be perfectly efficient and would be vulnerable to monopolization, intervention or unbalanced deals and so would not, by definition, be a free market.
>You need the other things to move away from the necessity of government regulation
I guess this is the crux of the matter. You are suggesting that transparency must pre-exist a free market, I am suggesting that a free market pre-exists transparency, and when necessary transparency will be demanded by the consumers.