I wish more people understood that markets include government regulation to ensure they operate in a competitive way. In a competitive market there must be so many buyers and sellers so that each has a negligible impact on the market price [1]. Obviously governments try to prevent monopolies to uphold this assumption. Regulation must also prevent market failures. Such failures occur with externalities. The most famous example being a factory that pollutes the environment thus producing negative health effects on people but incurring no cost for that damage without government intervention. Another example of a failure is information asymmetry (the doctor that recommends a procedure he knows you don't need but you trust him for his information) which is illegal.

My point is, markets do include government regulation. Academic debate is not centered on whether or not markets include government regulation by microeconomics definition. The debate is how much, where, when and how. If "free market" is defined as no government intervention, it is not an accepted practice and even conservative economists would not recommend it. I think there is a reason the term "free market" is not included in my microeconomics textbook. We look for a competitive market (described by the desired result), not a "free market" (described by the methods, not the result).

[1] Mankiw, Principle of Microeconomics 8th edition