> The snarky answer is "because that's not what capitalism is," but let's try to elevate the conversation a bit, shall we?

Sure, lets. It would be a waste of time to just spin definitions in a way that makes us inherently right about whatever it is we're talking about without reference to a common agreed set of terms.

When advocates for free markets or anarcho capitalists are talking about capitalism, they most decidedly are talking precisely about free trade. I am not sure where you're getting this other definition of capitalism that only exists as a subset of the westphalian nation state, that sounds a lot more like corporatism to me, where limited liability shells are set up with explicit protectionist policies and almost purchased legal protections supporting their manufactured business models from a nation state.

Just to be clear where are you getting this definition of capitalism as a creation of the state and something that cannot exist without it, completely divorced from the free market? How would you describe markets which exist outside the control and sanction of the state and without any participatory enforcement by the state, frequently enough actually even actively opposed by the state? The "means of production" and the control of that means is not necessarily within the hands of "the workers" in the marxist sense in those situations, so how is this not a direct example of capitalism without the state?

My description does not attempt to hide the authority, the seller is responsible for their security as is the buyer, they are both free to make whatever arrangements they choose with whatever other parties they choose in order to ensure the security of those products. Vendors might buy security cameras or other theft and violence deterrents. Buyers might buy insurance against defects or also be customers of third party organisations which have a vested interest in being trustworthy sources of information about the quality of products available at vendors a-z, and so on, and so forth. It is absolutely not implicitly necessary that security for both parties be provided by a nation state or its legislative, judicial and executive branches.

If socialist criticisms of capitalism entirely rely upon classifying capitalism as a sub branch of the nation state, it seems an awfully big hole to not acknowledge that trade and markets can exist entirely divorced from nation states?

Further on the subject of socialism; I don't see how it's actually possible for socialism to exist without states? Having a centralised body which exercises violent authority to which all parties must submit and participate in is pretty much the definition of a state, How can socialists criticise free market approaches for defacto use of state enforcement mechanisms because they are what is available rather than the only way free market participants may enforce their terms and conditions when the very nature of socialism is to rely on that exact same state but in a more direct way and with no alternative mechanism for enforcement at all? A political entity which dispenses edicts amongst a population which is entirely free to ignore them is little more than a church, of what consequence is a socialist platform without a monopoly on force to compel adherence to the edicts and forcibly finance the policies of the political entity through taxation?