You keep putting the equal sign there, not me.

If you take the principle of individual rights as your foundation, there are separate consequences in both politics and economics. You can try and pick and choose between the two, but it won't work as well. The contradictions eventually pile up.

Obviously economic activity of all sorts can take place under a dictatorship. Theoretically, a dictator who was a free-market enthusiast could restrain the government from interference with economic activity and allow free markets to work. A "King Log" approach. Sounds good, unless his son decides to be "King Stork." This kind of benign neglect seems to be happening in some places. You could make a case that China is taking this route. But eventually, the contradiction will be there. How long will that young girl with the cell phone and flag shirt be willing to accept that her rulers are chosen without her consent, when it is done differently so many other places? I don't know. Maybe a long time. I'm not Chinese.

That trade is occuring and profits are being made is not the only sign of a free market. As you point out in your examples, through most of history trade was still highly controlled by one political force or another. Could you enter any field you wanted? Or were there guilds? Did the rulers get a piece of the action through force, and preferential treatment? Could you enter any market at will, or was some special license or permission required of the rulers? There are many questions like this.

Why did the United States, largely founded without guilds, controls, centralized economic authority, ruling economic classes, and the rest skyrocket on almost all levels of well-being and prosperity compared to the rest of the world? The Soviet Union had far more natural resources. All the great collectivist nations had brainpower and educated scientists. What was missing? How could a tiny speck like Hong Kong rival the entire nation of China for so many years?

I understand the history of the nineteenth century has been thoroughly rewritten by the left. I can't do much about that. Were there problems? Sure there were. But go back and look at the actual economic, health, and other numbers for Americans as a whole in 1800 vs. Americans in 1900. To listen to some people, before Roosevelt introduced the concept of the State as the parent of the citizen, we were all living in caves.

There has never been a perfect free market on a large scale. But it still remains proven by many, many examples throughout history that a nation that leans in that direction will tend to be more prosperous and its people have a higher standard of living than those that lean toward centralized control of economies. The near-laboratory experiments of Korea, Germany, and China are conclusive.

The modern liberal believes that there is an ideal middle ground. I don't think so, but this is another argument altogether. But one problem I'm having is that right now is that the "middle ground" isn't really in the middle any more, but has a definite socialist flavor to it. We need to move the other way for a while.