Before kings, presidents and laws, there were already exchanges.
Before taxes, there was already a market.
Before the State, there was already freedom.
In this post, we will show that the market is not a creation of the state — it is a natural expression of free human interaction. The history of the economy does not begin on the throne or in parliament. It begins in the hands of free individuals, who exchanged value for value — without armed intermediaries.
👉 Read also: Perpetual Emergency: How the State Uses Crises to Expand
The Instinct to Exchange: The True Origin of Economics
Since ancient times, human beings have realized that they could improve their lives by exchanging surpluses:
- A hunter offered meat to those who grew grain.
- A craftsman exchanged tools for clothes.
- A fisherman traded fish for skins.
These exchanges:
- They were volunteers.
- They arose from scarcity and natural specialization.
- They created value without the need for coercion.
THE market was born there: in the free agreement between individuals seeking mutual prosperity.
Status: the delay that arrived later
Contrary to what many believe, the State did not create the market to organize society.
What history shows is that:
- First came the producers, the exchangers, the traders.
- Then came the tribal chiefs, the kings, the emperors — to tax them.
The primitive state existed basically to:
- Charge taxes (on products or in currency).
- Financing wars, temples and privileges of dominant castes.
- Suppress competition to maintain their own monopolies.
The State did not found the market.
The State invaded the market.
Free trade as a principle of peaceful cooperation
When the exchange is voluntary:
- Each side believes it will come out better than it went in.
- There is no need for coercion, nor violence.
- There are no winners and losers — both win.
The origin of social peace is exactly this:
The market is the most efficient system ever created for transforming conflict into cooperation.
- Instead of fighting for resources, people trade.
- Instead of stealing, they negotiate.
It is the market, not the State, that has taught man that it is better to cooperate than to wage war.
When the market flourishes, civilization advances
History also shows that:
- Where free exchange is respected, cities, technologies, innovations and prosperity emerge.
- Where the State suffocates the market with control, monopolies and abusive taxes, decay, stagnation and poverty arise.
It is no coincidence that:
- The most flourishing civilizations of the past were free commercial centers (Athens, Venice, Florence).
- The most oppressive and decadent were dominated by parasitic states (autocratic empires and rigid theocratic states).
Economic freedom is a precondition for civilizational freedom.
Conclusion: the market precedes the State — and will come after it
If history teaches us anything, it is that:
- Free exchange is older than any Constitution.
- The market resurfaces whenever oppression diminishes.
- Even under totalitarian states, people find ways to exchange, negotiate, and cooperate—sometimes illegally, but always driven by human nature.
The state can stifle the market for a while.
Can control, censor, confiscate.
But it cannot erase the human instinct to trade to prosper.
The market is the true nature of freedom.
And as long as there are human beings, there will be exchange.
📩 Do you want to understand how the State hijacked the market and transformed it into an instrument of power?
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