I have some difficulty with the definitions used in the OP. There seems to be some confusion between the system of government and the economic system. Although the two are inextricably inter-related, the economic system is not theoretically dependent on the form of government. Communism need not be a dictatorship or oligarchy, but almost universally is. Socialism and capitalism are both viable market regimes under almost any form of government.
The OP implicitly assumes a sharp delineation of government areas of expenditure and market oversight in a free market that I think is really artificial and mostly a matter of any particular author's opinion. In the strictly classical sense of a free market, even the laissez-faire attitude of the 19th century didn't make it. Parts of the market may have been free, but regulation was already rearing it's not-so-ugly head.
There's never been a truly free market since the days of government, and given the need to maintain some semblance of order for the good of society, there never will be. As for capitalism, I think it completely failed as a philosophy when Madison Ave reached the point that it could convince people that a Cadillac was better than exactly the same functional & feature-laden vehicle with the name Pontiac on it, simply because it was a Cadillac. That simply shouldn't happen under capitalism, in theory.
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