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I cannot understand how any of the things you describe are not free. The government kowtowing to corporations is as free as it gets. No one said that just becau

I cannot understand how any of the things you describe are not free. The government kowtowing to corporations is as free as it gets. No one said that just because the market is free that you personally wouldn’t end up holding the shit end of the stick

Rury 7mo ago
Free markets don't exist, or they only do for a very brief period of time. It's the same fundamental force behind why social hierarchies naturally form, and communism doesn't work in practice. When governments kowtow to corporations, it's the corporations who are then acting as the government. For example, in states like Texas, Alabama, and Wisconsin, laws prohibit automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. But these laws only exist because dealer associations wanted and lobbied for them to protect their business. Which is to show that freedom itself isn't a matter of who is kowtowing to whom, but merely whether or not kowtowing is happening whatsoever. If it is, then someone's freedom is being restrained, and said market environment could be argued to not be "free". In fact, this is what Tesla has argued multiple times in court in such states in that these laws are anticompetitive, and violate due process and the commerce clause.
Terr_ 7mo ago
Hold up, there are two very different kinds of "free" that pop up, from mutually incompatible ends of a spectrum. In the first, it's a "free" market because everything moves smoothly and efficiently in ways that make economic mathematicians happy. There's perfect information, all transactions and prices and actor-identities are are known, and it's generally assumed there are no monopolies or monopsonies. In the second, individual actors are "free" to construct secret deals with special secret prices, non-disclosure agreements, act anonymously through proxies, etc. At least in US politics, the equivocation is common: Someone appeals to the benefits of the first, while promoting the contradictory mechanics of the second.
pheaded_while9 7mo ago
The violence of the state makes the market not "free." Unless you want to abstract all the way out: the planet is and always has been run through violent coercion by psycopaths, and, as exampled by reality, they are "free" to do so. But in the sense they mean, the violence of the state precludes a free market. For the record, I do not believe in the validity of money, coercion, usury, violence.

Rury 7mo ago

Free markets don't exist, or they only do for a very brief period of time. It's the same fundamental force behind why social hierarchies naturally form, and communism doesn't work in practice. When governments kowtow to corporations, it's the corporations who are then acting as the government. For example, in states like Texas, Alabama, and Wisconsin, laws prohibit automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. But these laws only exist because dealer associations wanted and lobbied for them to protect their business. Which is to show that freedom itself isn't a matter of who is kowtowing to whom, but merely whether or not kowtowing is happening whatsoever. If it is, then someone's freedom is being restrained, and said market environment could be argued to not be "free". In fact, this is what Tesla has argued multiple times in court in such states in that these laws are anticompetitive, and violate due process and the commerce clause.

Terr_ 7mo ago

Hold up, there are two very different kinds of "free" that pop up, from mutually incompatible ends of a spectrum. In the first, it's a "free" market because everything moves smoothly and efficiently in ways that make economic mathematicians happy. There's perfect information, all transactions and prices and actor-identities are are known, and it's generally assumed there are no monopolies or monopsonies. In the second, individual actors are "free" to construct secret deals with special secret prices, non-disclosure agreements, act anonymously through proxies, etc. At least in US politics, the equivocation is common: Someone appeals to the benefits of the first, while promoting the contradictory mechanics of the second.

pheaded_while9 7mo ago

The violence of the state makes the market not "free." Unless you want to abstract all the way out: the planet is and always has been run through violent coercion by psycopaths, and, as exampled by reality, they are "free" to do so. But in the sense they mean, the violence of the state precludes a free market. For the record, I do not believe in the validity of money, coercion, usury, violence.