The blackmarket & free market captialism

Watching the movie "White" the other night, part of the Three Color trilogy written and directed by Krysztof Kieslowski in which the hero rapidly accumulates wealth, in Poland of all places, as a way of getting even with his ex-wife, I got the idea of trying to determine how much of the world's economy is black market, illegal, unregulated etc.  

I guessed it's at least half, if not more. 

At least half, and not considering USA, Chinese, Russian military operations or undercover arms trading, which is off the charts.

Surely The Rand Corporation or The Cato Institute or even Wikipedia would have the answer.

Whatever the case, the blackmarket is thriving--bicycles and cigarettes, dope and knockoff Prada handbags, human organs and slavery.

The term free-market capitalism then came to mind, as it's bandied about so much these days in praise of a certain American spirit which might have almost actually existed in the beginning, when the continent was young and the population tiny. Free-market capitalism, in which the market is supposed to operate as if in that vacuum where every man is for himself.

In the meantime, the hero of the movie "White", having accumulted great wealth, fakes his death so that he can lure his ex-wife to his funeral.

My partner, who listened to my theory as we watched the movie together, said "it's all blackmarket", an exaggeration that had a certain beautiful truth as all exaggerations do.

"These free-market people need to be exposed," she said, "for the phonies they are. They live in a dream world, but somehow they're selling it, not only as an American virtue but as a human right."

We agreed it was a myth, the notion that the market worked better when there were no controls, no regulations, no group oversight, a mass delusion, a manipulation of the narrative...

She said she was going to write a letter to Obama, and then decided Paul Krugman would be a better choice. She's suggesting that Krugman write a column about the subject, drawing the parallel between the blackmarket and the idea of free market capitalism, framing the issue in the moral terms it deserves.