Markets aren't an inherent thing. They are social constructs, and therefore need rules. They are not a natural process and the uncontrolled practice of it is not superior. If you just "leave it alone" things won't get better, because greed and selfishness ARE inherent, and they regularly interfere with and undermine human enterprise.
So - there was complete anarchy before we had abstract models and formalized mathematical representations of them administered by a central authority who had the foresight to translate them into a set of laws?
Per your definition, nothing that humans engage in is a natural process since everything from sex to defecation to eating is governed by an ornate set of rules and norms associated with a local and mutable social context.
Humans have been engaged in production and exchange as long as there have been humans. There has never been a time when they have done so in the absence of a complex set of rules and norms that governed the said activities.
The idea that all of the rules and norms that govern human interactions owes its existence to a formal rule-making body that imposed them on society in a top down fashion is as ahistorical as it is irrational. Where do you think things like commercial contracts, letters of credit, titles, liens, fractional reserve banking, stocks, bonds, liability, etc came from? Do you really think that they were designed in a room somewhere by a committee of intellectuals who were able to look into the future and determine that they'd be necessary to regulate commerce someday?
Who said anything about anarchy? Just because something is not optimal doesn't mean it's anarchistic. Anarchy doesn't really exist, there are always rules, implicit or otherwise. It's not black and white.
Are you saying that markets were born pure? Give me a break, you can't really believe that.
As we become more advanced, we can learn things we are doing that are not efficient and we can improve upon them. Democracy is not inherent; we invented it, and improved upon it over the course of thousands of years. We can also improve upon markets, by figuring out what works well and what doesn't. That sounds a lot better to me than leaving everything to chance, and letting the most powerful agents rise to the top, and then trusting that "everything will work itself out."
Why have rules at all? Why not just let EVERYTHING "work itself out" ?? If you want to have free markets and believe that the free market system will police itself, why not have free EVERYTHING. Abolish ALL laws. It will all just work out, right?
