[zozbot123]

> We are told that our choice is between free markets and state control, when most adults live their working lives under a third thing entirely: private government.

Of course, in practice, private government goes hand-in-hand with growth in the usual sort of government - this is what today's "institutional reality" looks like. A truly free institutional reality would have people constantly voting with their feet, shopping around for the best "private government" service. It's only because of pervasive interference that this is not allowed to happen today.

[wazoox]

But there is no way out of "pervasive interference". For instance quite obviously the normal state of a network company as was Standard Oil, AT&T and nowadays Google and Facebook is a monopoly. How do you "vote with your feet" then?

The fundamental error is the erroneous belief that markets will magically find equilibrium states, and optimal ones with that. Both premises are false: market tend to equilibrium only in undesirable situations such as oligopoly, monopoly or monopsony; else they're simply chaotic and fail to converge to anything stable and go anarchically from boom to bust.