The word needs to be retired. It gets evoked by some to mean a type of dog eat dog libertarianism and by others as a shorthand for the abuses of corporations and unjust outcomes of markets.

I see the idea as the simple preference that people be free to participate in voluntary markets, not be forced into labor, and be allowed to own property and build wealth. This is real basic stuff that almost everyone agrees on because history showed all the competing ideas led to mass poverty and starvation.

The real important questions of today are how a government deals with the fact that people don’t live in bubbles, they don’t agree on things, they can become physically or mentally ill, they can misbehave under the influence of substances, they can make poor decisions and have bad luck, they take advantage of others, they can use their wealth to buy advantages and monopolies, and they can be born into bad situations by no fault of their own.