Regarding the state's role in free markets: I do not dispute that it can play a positive role, for example, in setting up standards. The point is that the state is not necessary for a free market: roads are, and contract law. Feudalism provided the latter but not the former.
The ecconomics of medieval life were restrictive indeed, except for the thin upper layer. A farmer was uneducated and lacked leisure so as a practical matter he was stuck in the farm. A modern farmer has much greater mobility. But the medieval farmer knew that he and his children will have the farm forever, unless war destroys it or they sell it. Modern property rights are nowhere nearly as secure: laws can be passed that virtually invalidate farming or tax the farmer out of his land. Our property is subject to the whims of state; their property was subject to the ability of the farmer to physically defend it, himself or through contractual vassalage.
I do not agree here. I say quite the opposite was actually the case. The medieval farmer was constantly taxed out of his produce, his children were drafted out of their farm, and quite often his land lords children who he had to raise as his own inherited the farm. In short, their was no system, only power plays.
Modern property rights are nowhere nearly as secure: laws can be passed that virtually invalidate farming or tax the farmer out of his land.
The rare exceptions where laws have been passed that actually invalidate existing farms are not an accurate descriptive of modern property rights. Yes farmers are taxed out of their farms today. But that is nothing compared to the arbitrary taxing of the entire produce in medieval times, that often forced farmers to abandon their farms to work the lords farms in order to avoid starvation.
Our property is subject to the whims of state; their property was subject to the ability of the farmer to physically defend it, himself or through contractual vassalage.
Our body of law, though imperfect and often corrupted, does not in general subject the peoples property rights to the whims of the state, nearly as much as peoples property rights were under the monarchist systems. Feudalism was even worse.