Rick Kelo - The State in Free Markets

When most people picture a "free market" they think of a lawless free for all where anything goes.  Not so says Rick Kelo, an economic thinker educated at West Point and at Chicago.

"Market economies exist based upon legal sanction of private property and legal sanction of contract (as a form of property right)," Kelo says.  He remarks that in order to have a free market economy it is necessary for the State to provide courts of law where companies who engage in fraudulent commerce can be made to pay huge sums of money as a punishment to set an example.

He also remarks that it will probably always be a necessary function of government to protect the citizens from violence.  "To maintain a system of private property rights it's necessary for there to be a government.  The reason is we need that government to maintain a military to protect from attacks from outside, and a police force to protect citizen's from attacks on their person or property domestically," says Richard Kelo.

Paul Davidson, Rick Kelo and Lord Robert Skidelsky