Anthony: You are quite correct. A free trade agreement need not take up thousands of pages of text. In fact, it could be written in one sentence: “no signatory to this agreement shall enact or enforce any statute, regulation, judicial decision, or other governmental restriction on the liberty of people to produce, purchase, sell, transport, or exchange any goods or services based upon terms freely negotiated by them.”
(I should resurrect a “constitution of principles for a free society” that I wrote, some forty-three years ago, and which is much more concise than this hurried writing. Such an approach could lead to expanding the notion of “separation of church and state” to a “separation of economy and state.” From there, it would be an easier jump to discuss a “separation of people and state.”)
