It’s possible to argue that no market has ever been truly free as there have always been rules. Which is true. But the important meaning of free in free markets is that the ability to enter the market is free - people are free to try their hand at producing what people might desire to have.

Technology advances, human tastes and desires change. So there’s a constantly changing universe of things that can be done, also of what it is desired be done. Free entry into that market - anyone and everyone gets to try whatever - is what sorts through, in the most efficient manner possible, to that meeting point of the Venn Diagram. What people want to have done out of what can be done.

The entrepreneur in all of this is, in the strict definition, the person who takes extant economic assets and combines them in some new manner.

The weapons are thought to be Soviet-era RKG-3 anti-tank grenades with 3D-printed tail fins attached to stabilise their fall.

First introduced in 1950, the grenade is designed to be thrown by hand against tanks and armoured vehicles.

….

The RKG-3 grenade has been renamed the RKG-1600 when the 3D-printed fins have been added. The new weapon weighs about 1kg.

Tests have shown the stabilised grenade can hit a 1m target from a height of 300m (900 feet).

Videos released by Aerorozvidka show Ukrainian-made octocopter drones with two RKG-1600 bomblets mounted beneath them.

The tank is around a century old. That grenade, some 70. Those drones are two or three years old as cheap and reliable machines. The combination of two of them solves that third problem.

This is entrepreneurialism in everything. Extant economic assets have been combined in a new manner to solve a problem.

The free part of free markets really is important. It’s free entry that really matters.