To protect rights, individuals form governments. But government is a dangerous institution. Thus they want to divide and limit power, and that means especially to limit government, generally through a written constitution enumerating and limiting the powers that the people delegate to government. To survive and to flourish, individuals need to engage in economic activity. The right to property entails the right to exchange property by mutual agreement.
Free markets are the economic system of free individuals, and they are necessary to create wealth.
Libertarians believe that people will be both freer and more prosperous if government intervention in people's economic choices is minimized. The Virtue of Production. Much of the impetus for libertarianism in the seventeenth century was a reaction against monarchs and aristocrats who lived off the productive labor of other people. Libertarians defended the right of people to keep the fruits of their labor. This effort developed into a respect for the dignity of work and production and especially for the growing middle class, who were looked down upon by aristocrats.