If, as in Japan, the central bank represents the majority of interest in government debt, is that free or controlled?
the "market" is simply the thing we bet on. At times the market and the government become one and the same. But that doesn't mean the market is not free. Try trading wheat against the Soviet Union back then. They were the market but the market was certainly free. But I will agree, what previously was left to the "market" is increasingly trying to be controlled. But once it is controlled, it is no longer a market and the risk moves on to a new market.