Your counter is that now, a hundred years after they ceased to be widely used for personal transport, the free market has a solution? After centuries of their use where it did not solve the problem? That is pretty weak reasoning. I'm honestly not sure if you're just trolling me now. It amounts to saying something like "evolution can solve all problems". Even if true, the timeline leaves a bit to be desired, and a bit of manual intervention can do better. Not only that, but insurance happens to be a regulated industry, so your argument is flawed on that account as well.
My argument doesn't say the free market can't solve problems. It's not terribly difficult to think of theoretical free-market solutions to many problems. My argument is that the free market doesn't solve all problems. Or if I grant your reasoning on the horse problem, they don't appear anything like as quickly as we'd want.
You're talking about cultural norms while the examples we're using here are in the context of economic transactions. Even still, yes, there were differences in who was considered responsible for problems. 100 years ago and more, the government was seen as less responsible, i.e, less regulation. This is why I chose it: Closer to an unregulated free market. That makes it more apt for examples where the free market had an opportunity to arrive at solutions for common problems, yet failed to do so.
My argument doesn't say the free market can't solve problems. It's not terribly difficult to think of theoretical free-market solutions to many problems. My argument is that the free market doesn't solve all problems. Or if I grant your reasoning on the horse problem, they don't appear anything like as quickly as we'd want.