I think one has to account for the idea that a free market doesn't resolve conflicts arising from individual rights and freedoms. My right to pursue happiness stops at the limits where it inhibits your right to the same. This is why for a free market to flourish you need laws protecting private property and the rights of individuals, a free market doesn't mean a free for all.
Overall, your statements are consistent with a classical liberal view of the market, which is a system based upon on a natural law concept. However, if one believes in the market as a discovery process with no natural constraints, or laws, then we can see that conflicts are resolved through the creation of a superstructure of culture, religion, laws, and institutions - with government being but one of the set of institutions. Further, being a discovery process, the market encompasses both socialism and classical liberalism, and thus, the dichotomy you assert between the “free market” and government (or laws) arises from your conception that government should constrain itself according to natural law precepts, while the government we have includes socialist concepts. |
