I didn't think you were being coy or anything. But I noticed you picked the expression with the propaganda power: "the people". For example, "the people" bombed a medicine factory in Somalia. "The people" created a prescription drug benefit which will cost us trillions. "The people" passed a ban on "assault weapons".
The reality is that our republic was designed around the protection of private property rights. "The people" have trampled those rights in the dirt. Your belief that it's OK, since "the people" wanted it that way, is a pure and simple affirmation of statism (and as pertains to markets, of fascism).
Our laws across the board by-and-large reflect what the people of this country want.
That has been disproven quite thoroughly in a number of ways. Just to name one, are you honestly saying that a majority of Americans want to pay three times more for sugar than the rest of the world does? The laws hardly reflect what a majority actually want. But that doesn't matter anyway: the constitution was designed to restrain "the people"--remember, the framers believed in limited "the people"--and, in particular, to protect certain rights and freedoms from "the people". The bill of rights list some key restraints on "the people", at least the federal "the people", which are not followed today. Which brings us back to the freedom of association, may it rest in peace.
Government enforcement of contracts and property rights is primordial to the very existence of capitalism.
You love to beg questions, don't you? Actually the federal "the people" has no authority to enforce contracts. That power is reserved to the state "the peoples". But you are arguing that only a particular method of enforcing contracts makes markets possible. Counter-examples exist in history, including American history, including, wouldja believe it, today in America! The use of arbitrators represents a parallel judiciary that is voluntary rather than mandatory, and it does a lot of good.
This shouldn't be controversial, really.
Because the rightness of statism is self-evident? Sigh. Just... sigh.
Arbitration only works because courts stand ready to enforce arbitral decisions. Without the power of the state to compel performance of contracts or obedience to adjudicated decision, people would welch on contracts and NOT PAY. It happens all the time, but the law acts as a backstop to protect the performing contractant. That this can be done in arbitration rather than in a full-blown court proceeding is admirably efficient. But it wouldn't work at all if the state were not willing to stand behind binding arbitration and enforce arbitral decisions.
As to the enforcement of contracts, the jurisdiction over contractual disputes between citizens of different states has ALWAYS reposed in the Federal Courts. It's written right into the Constitution. Your assertion that the federal power does not extend to the enforcement of contracts is in error on the plain text of the Constitution, q.v.
There is freedom of association.
There never was freedom to abuse any freedom.
What constitutes an abuse of freedom has been largely defined by law. Firing somebody for being a Catholic, and refusing to hire somebody because he's black are both examples of things that have been outlawed. You don't have to admit Catholics or blacks into your house, unless you hold open the doors of your house to commerce and become a public inn. Then you DO. Which is as it should be.