The economic system also creates and applies its own definitions of family. For example, the economic system distinguishes between child labor in industrial production within the wage labor system and child labor for agricultural production on the family farm. The economic system markets goods and services produced by the economy to the family consumption unit and defines family with as few members as possible to discourage the sharing of goods and services within an extended family. The economic system also establishes a system of financial accountability so debts owed by one family member become an obligation on other family members. In a Conservative free society, individuals and couples merely exchange the state's definitions of family for definitions imposed by other social institutions.
Persons define family for themselves.
Bloodlines and marital ties give way to psychological attachment and reciprocal need satisfaction as the primary basis for the formation of a family and for insuring the long-term survival of the family. The needs and interests of the greater society the state, Church, economy give way to the needs and interests of the individuals who voluntarily create, or dissolve, families. Family in a Libertarian free society is a voluntary union for the mutual personal gratification, mutual personal and group need fulfillment, and personal self-actualization. This voluntary union may have rigid boundaries, if that is what the members of the union desire, or may have relatively open permeable boundaries, with members entering or exiting the union at their will. With family defined in interactional, situational, and psychological terms and each family of individuals free to define family for themselves, the variations in family are limitless.