Defending Free Markets, one rally at a time

I'm in Washington DC for a rally of free market defenders. Good energy, and a heartening mix of younger activists -- an especially positive sign.

I'd still like to hear a positive vision for government's role in protecting and defending free markets. It exists, and needs to be set out in detail.

For example, a transaction is a free market transaction only when it is a voluntary exchange, freely entered into by two parties who have roughly equal information, and each has other alternatives he could have chosen.

To quote one authority, with liberties taken in formatting:

...[T]he organization of economic activity through voluntary exchange presumes that we have provided, through government [emphasis added throughout], for:

• the maintenance of law and order to prevent coercion of one individual by another,
• the enforcement of contracts voluntarily entered into,
• the definition of the meaning of property rights,
• the interpretation and enforcement of such rights, and
• the provision of a monetary framework.

(Source: Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, U of Chicago Press, 1962.)

The current market turmoil has, at its heart, the

As I wrote recently,