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Originally Posted by harvey
well, it's all cool and dandy... in la-la-land. In real world, one guy makes, wine, one makes beer, one makes cheese, and there are one or more guys who will wait until they produce all those delicious things and come with a big stick, steal all the production, rape their daughters and enslave everybody to continue producing. It's called story of the world since Lucy (the Australopithecus afarensis not Lucille Ball!) until now (and the millenniums to come). In order to avoid that, you need some kind of protection, whether it's from some kind of government or private. In La-la-land, private could be an option because they're oh so good and heartfelt no problem would arise, but in real world the guy who produces wine will try to destroy the guy who produces beer so they will eat only cheese and wine. It's called capitalism 101, but it really came from ancient times with different names and political systems.
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Of course crime exists. Protection is a service like any others so the market would provide it. Check "Enterprise of Law" by Bruce Benson, "the Boundaries Of Order" by Buttler Shafer, "The Private Production of Defense" by Hans Hoppe or David Friedman's articles on "the machinery Of Freedom" for an example of competing protection agencies in the icelandic Freestate.
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On top of that, not a single DECENT economist would defend an absolute free trade market.
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ad hominem argument
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However, when you add the variable of services, there's a loss of balance since... how do you value work time in terms of cheese, beer and wine? There's a solution to this, though: as long as the services demand doesn't surpass what the whole market produces and the market stays on a limited size, the system will be stable. In general, that should work, specially when you have adjust mechanisms based on sustainability and future production.
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1. As Say's Law shows there can never be a systematic overproduction in the economy.
2. Labor is a scarce resource just like any other and the Law of supply and demand therefor applies to it.
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But... then we get the intangibles. Let's say that in your system there were 5 producers of each product, so each producer decides to "add value" with a nice packaging, branding, advertising, etc. The product is EXACTLY the same, only that now it costs 3 or 4 times more. So... where is that 75% of "ghost" value?
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Value is subjective. It's the buyer that decides what value a product has. If a product is priced at $50 and a potential customer decides not to buy that product then that customer valued his $50 more than that product.
If a customer can chose between a normal toothbrush and a pink toothbrush that is more expensive and the customer picks the pink one than the customer obviously valued the pink toothbrush higher than the normal one even though they both can be used to perform the exact same function.
Value is subjective not objective so there's no such thing a "Ghost value".
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Let me explain it with another easy to understand example: The value of the Internet business amounts to trillions of dollars. Now, let's say someone pulls the plug of the Internet tomorrow and Internet is shut down. There would be entire countries collapsing and the biggest crisis ever seen in history, right? The funny thing is that, in reality, if you look around, you didn't lose anything. The cows are there, the grapes are there, teh barley is there. In real value terms, you are not richer or poorer. Yet you're facing a crisis that may end your society, the world as you knew it and even your life.
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The fact that certain things are digital or stored digitally doesn't make them less real. When someone pays money to watch a video over the internet, he is paying for a real service.
When people pay money to take part in a webinar, then they are paying for a real service.
When people use the internet to communicate, they actually communicate with other people in the real world.
When 2 people in "the real world (where cows live and grapes grow)" use the internet to do business, then they affect each other in the real world.
If you'd "pull the plug" you wouldn't shut of some virtual world that isn't part of the real world. You'd be destroying a tool that people in "the real world" use... jsut like telephones, smoke signals, handwritten letters etc.
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The point is that there wasn't a single time or place in history where absolutely free market existed other than isolated villages in ancient times. At most, there were some RELATIVELY FREE markets. Nowadays it is BEYOND an utopia. For a single reason: who do you think will protect you, regulate laws, build infrastructure, look out for development, etc. The guy that makes beer? Will he build roads? will he build a dam? will he look for the cheese guy not taking out the winery? Unrealistic, huh? And so... how do you think all this "superior entity" is maintained? With good wishes?
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How do you think that "superior entity" called that state is maintained? How do you think that "superior entity" called that state is run?
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Seriously, I know these ideas may sound like original or cool but they aren't new at all, if you know a little of Malatesta, Gramsci, Bakunin or even Saint Simon you would have seen them in one shape or another.
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I've read some of those, but not all. The problem is that most of their ideas are based on flawaed economic theory.
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Plus, I've noticed how you did concentrate on the New Deal I mentioned (twisting it) but you avoided everything else. And it's for a simple reason: what you're saying, as good, bad, wrong or right as it might be, is an absolute impossible in real world and in this times (or any time to come).
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I focussed on the New Deal because that was a good example to show how gov intervention causes problems. I also picked it because these days a lot of people still believe that the New Deal somehow ended the great Depression, even though most of them are unable to explain what exactly the New Deal was (other than 'it was something FDR did'). and because these days some people are calling for a new New Deal.
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In fact, more or less what you're proposing is called Anarcho-Primitivism: not by theory itself, but for the only possible results to this model: A "Waldenesque" lifestyle 
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Absolutely not. Of all the economists and philosophers I've mentioned in this thread, none can be classified within that school of thought.
If you want to find out where my personal preferences lie... start within the Rothbardian tradition