A trade system that is self regulating, and is not subject to an external regulatory system. Although as you point out, in the real world markets are never completely unregulated. So in practical terms, it means the least-regulated market of the ones currently available.
Interesting that you say self-regulating... I'm going to come back to that.
I take a market to be a place or arrangement where people can meet to trade goods or services. So a free market would be a market where people can trade goods and services with no government interferrance. However, this is mostly a hypothetical descripton used for heuristic purposes. The market also has another very important function, which is to create and facilitate the sharing of infomation between buyers and sellers (and anyone else).
Thinkers who's view of the free market is characterised by qualities more often associated with religious worship, such as:
Universality - Irreducability - Omnipresence - Dichotomy - Evangelism
Personally, I don't recognise this mystical and patronising characterisation of liberal/libertarian economics writers at all (though I will try to bear in mind with regard to my own posts), although I guess this is how people talk about "neo-liberals". I do think that, for instance, that the market is better at regulating and organising resources (my sense - not necessarily commmodities) than the government, and that the free-er a market is, the more responsive it is and the better it represents those who trade and those who are traded within it. Whether that is a religious and universalist view of the market is for you to deside, but I think it is a little silly to claim that "free-market evangelists" have a "religious" attachment to the free market such that they want to apply it to every field of human endeavor or activity. (I don't even know what you mean there, to be honest). A market is for buying and selling stuff, and for finding out about the buying and selling of stuff.
Irreducability and omnipresence are even more mystically inclined criticisms of this movement (of yours) given that economic freedom is essentially one of degree (and which you say you recognise).
There's not really much point in my addressing the last two... I'm just going to say that the stakes are very high and economic liberalism is in no way the inevitable result of policy, and if we have a strong attachment to our values, we have also learned that many have a strong dislike for them as well. Liberty has enemies - that's not paranoia, just recognition of a fact. Globalisation is not even particularly widespread, probably being at roughly similar levels to the era pre the rise of collectivism and world war in 1913. It should be encouraged, because (free) trade is an important and beneficial activity for all societies that participate.
Hayek and Freidman weren't free market evangelists, but many of the current commentators on the american right who owe allegience to their ideas are. Even academic thinkers such as Landsburg have a tendancy to move towards an evangelical position when writing for the lay reader. From what you've posted here and in the Moral High Ground thread, I'd class you as a free market evangelist.
I don't see much difference between, say, Hayek and Reisman, or even Reisman and von Mises. If you want to reduce liberal or neo-classical economics to a religious cartoon or to a paranoid misrepresentation like "neo-liberalism" (all the easier to dismiss, all the easier to ignore), then it's really up to you.
And it's all really up to the voters and the policy makers. At the end of the day classical liberalism is simply better, IMHO, than any other system. It's had some success in recent years (the collapse of collectivism - also not irreversable, despite its bankruptcy), but it's not the only game in town and it's not even necessarily likely in today's global climate (i.e. given widespread mistrust of liberalism and the looming Sino-US trade war).
I suppose that at least you are actually reading Hayek and other liberal economists and writers, which is a step in the right direction. However, I have to wonder - cf "free market evangelists" - how much you have taken on board, given that the real struggle is not between "sceptics and true believers", but between market freedom and government control, between two competing modes of economic organisation. (And given that both modes can be and are mixed together as desired; and given the consitution of liberalism as a political doctrine. But whatever, I'm pretty argumentative anyway so I'm just going to go with it).
I'm talking about economic globalisation, rather than the wider cultural definition. I don't necessarily see the latter as being an inevitable consequence of the former. Economic globalisation is the process of removing obstacles to trade between all nations or groups of peoples on the globe. It is therefore the furthest logical extension of cross-border trade, which has been a facet of human interaction for most of it's history.
So you're going to miss the point of globalisation and the point of this thread. This thread is about a process, a process of cross-border economic integration which begins in the relatively recent past (the liberal 19th century), not the inevitable culmination of the movement of history. (Who's getting religious now)? Of course trade has existed throughout history, but the growth and power of international trade in economic terms has expolded in the last two hundred years. It does have a historical symmetry, however, which shouldn't be ignored.
Looking at commodity prices, convergence was strong for all the basics by the end of the 19th century. Prior to the 19th century, I don't think that there is any evidence for price convergence. (See Kevin O'Rourke, "Europe and the Causes of Globalisation, 1790 to 2000"). According to O'Rourke the latter part of that century featured "the most impressive period of economic integration which the world has seen to date". Similarly, international trade was an important source of revenue for some, prior to the industrial revolution (energy!), but generally not a massive earner, in a large part due to the cost of transport.
I can see where you're coming from with the distinctions between the terms 'globalisation' and 'free markets' - I'd agree with them to some extent, if we're talking about the wider, cultural sense of globalisation, 'all nations becoming more alike'. But in the modern usage, 'globalisation' is shorthand for 'globalisation of american/western values' - no one talks of Jihad as Islamic Globalisation, for example. So economically, globalisation means free markets. And to the free market evangelist, the universality of free markets naturally implies globalisation. So I'd suggest that the two concepts are interchangable at an economic level. Since we're clarifying terms though, let's go for Free Markets because it's less ambiguous.
I think that we should go with "globalisation", because "free markets" is too open to misinterpretation. However, economically gloablisation does mean the liberalisation of trade restrictions, so if you understand "free markets" to include globally un-free markets becoming globally free-er, and having a separate meaning regarding a hypothetical and specific market, then I guess I'm ok with that.
Oh yeah, and you're wrong about no one talking about Jihad as Islamic globalisation. We talk about that a fair bit.
I'm not sure precisely what I'm suggesting - I'm still making my mind up, and posting on this thread is a part of that process. But generally, I support lightly regulated free trade in markets where the individual acts alone or in small groups as purchaser, and can be reasonably informed about the purchase without specialist knowledge. I think the free trade model breaks down in markets where the timeframe and capital involved takes the decision out of the individual's hands (defence and energy) or where the technical barriers to informed purchasing cannot be reasonably overcome with layman's knowledge (specifically pharmaceuticals and energy, but an increasing problem in all markets as our society becomes more technological).....
In a wider sense, I object to the view implicit in free market evangelism that the free market is the natural arbitrator in all human experience, that it has a moral dimension, or that it is an inevitable precurser to positive political phenomena like democracy and fair governance. To me, the free market is an economic tool that is appropriate in some situations and not appropriate in others. It can be broken down or combined with other market models as befits any given situation.
These seem like the real issues, so I will try and focus another post on the role of the market in an economy, to try to show why "free market evangelists" or "neo-liberals" think that it has a regulatory social function and why it might be better at that than the government. I don't think that you're characterising classical liberal opinion fairly though. The market is obviously an economic tool - regardless of partisan alignment. Who would suggest otherwise? And as far as I can see, there are only really two choices: market control (by government) or market freedom. They represent opposite points on a scale, and policy normally picks how far in either direction it wants the pendulum to swing.