In a free society, the “rights” of any group are derived from the rights of its
members through their voluntary, individual choice and contractual agreement,
and are merely the application of these individual rights to a specific
undertaking. Every legitimate group undertaking is based on the participants’
right of free association and free trade. (By “legitimate,” I mean: noncriminal
and freely formed, that is, a group which no one was forced to join.)
For instance, the right of an industrial concern to engage in business is
derived from the right of its owners to invest their money in a productive
venture—from their right to hire employees—from the right of the employees to
sell their services—from the right of all those involved to produce and to
sell their products—from the right of the customers to buy (or not to buy)
those products. Every link of this complex chain of contractual relationships
rests on individual rights, individual choices, individual agreements. Every
agreement is delimited, specified and subject to certain conditions, that is,
dependent upon a mutual trade to mutual benefit.