Of course you aren't going to discuss environmental issues, you realized you can't, a long time ago, and you were the one who brought up militarism and implied a causation. If you don't want to be called out for your obvious distractions, then don't seek to distract.

China removed many regulations that allowed open competition (inside it's own borders) in key economic regions. Most notably electronics manufacturing. That has lead to an increase of overall wealth for the country and an ever increasing middle class. Sure they are still controlled by large, corrupt, progressive government, but those things always go hand in hand with progressive governments.

The costs of the free market were mainly environmental, which you refuse to discuss, but were quite well addressed with the rise of the conservation movement in the mid 1960's. The other has been labor. The toll on workers was atrocious which lead to rise of labor unions which made significant grounds in improving workers conditions.

Unfortunately both the environmental and labor movement have been co-opted by leftists, in order to put a stranglehold on the free market and bring to heel all industry under government control.