A great many people — more than ever, probably — describe themselves as supporters of the free market today, in spite of the unrelenting propaganda against it. And that’s great. Those statements of support, however, are followed by the inevitable but: but we need government to provide physical security and dispute resolution, the most critical services of all.
Almost without a thought, people who otherwise support the market want to assign to government the production of the most important goods and services. Many favor a government or government-delegated monopoly on the production of money, and all support a government monopoly on the production of law and protection services.
This isn’t to say these folks are stupid or doltish. Nearly all of us passed through a limited-government — or “minarchist ” — period, and it simply never occurred to us to examine our premises closely.
To begin with, a few basic economic principles ought to give us pause before we assume government activity is advisable:
