> Along with inestimable human livelihood and wealth, the free market creates various possibilities to foolishly harm oneself.

As opposed to the ability for the state to foolishly harm us? Sure, a free market allows humans to be human and make mistakes, but allowing others to take your freedom in the interest of self-preservation is a fool's compromise.

Certainly, you raise great philosophical questions though. One of my favorite thought experiments is to imagine how many things done by the government today could be accomplished without the government. I don't mean obvious things like the postal service, I mean fundamental services like road building and a court system. I plan to read David Friedman's book soon on this topic, called "Legal Systems Very Different From Ours":

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy...