Food, water, shelter, and healthcare are not things one chooses to buy, but things one is forced to buy to survive.
Under a free market you choose whom to buy your food, water, and shelter from.
Water is less free than the other two markets, because water through plumbing can only come from one state-sanctioned monopoly. But there are many ways to get water outside of plumbing.
To buy these, you need money. To get money, you need a job. You also need enough money saved up to survive after you can no longer work a job.
Yes, life still requires effort, even though we have civilization. When I refer to freedom, I am not referring to unconditioned consciousness arising from pure void, or whatever matter-and-energy-free state you seem to think free markets should be compared to.
To get and maintain a job you need to buy some other things. Exactly what other things varies by job and climate, but in general: clothes, transportation, phone, electricity.
That’s a lot of things that you cannot willingly choose not to buy if you want to live.
Same points repeated.
Yes. In case there’s any confusion, “free market” does not refer to a state of being free to choose whether to eat, sleep, drink, etc. Freedom in this case does not refer to a godlike state of unconditioned bliss.
What that means practically, in this discussion, is that when a person is selling water in a free market, nobody is forced to do business with them because they have competition.
A person who gets rich selling water in a free market does so by providing the best water at the best price.
provide them something they willingly choose to buy.
If all the sellers of vacuum cleaners decide to have high prices, people can just choose not to buy vacuums. If all the electricity providers or food providers in an area decide to raise prices, people in that area are still forced to buy it.
I believe capitalism doesn’t work without the option of not buying it at all. In markets with few options and that you cannot choose not to buy it, sellers can all collectively jack up prices.
Here’s an FTC report saying that they found that large food retailers used the supply chain issues to make deals with suppliers to supply them over smaller grocery stores. This harmed small local groceries. The report also says they found reason to further investigate the large grocery chains taking advantage of this lack of supply to local groceries to increase prices for customers by more than the increase in input cost. They were able to price gouge because only 8 firms control over half of grocery sales and people can’t choose not to get groceries.
Under a free market you choose whom to buy your food, water, and shelter from.
Water is less free than the other two markets, because water through plumbing can only come from one state-sanctioned monopoly. But there are many ways to get water outside of plumbing.
Yes, life still requires effort, even though we have civilization. When I refer to freedom, I am not referring to unconditioned consciousness arising from pure void, or whatever matter-and-energy-free state you seem to think free markets should be compared to.
Same points repeated.
Yes. In case there’s any confusion, “free market” does not refer to a state of being free to choose whether to eat, sleep, drink, etc. Freedom in this case does not refer to a godlike state of unconditioned bliss.
What that means practically, in this discussion, is that when a person is selling water in a free market, nobody is forced to do business with them because they have competition.
A person who gets rich selling water in a free market does so by providing the best water at the best price.
If all the sellers of vacuum cleaners decide to have high prices, people can just choose not to buy vacuums. If all the electricity providers or food providers in an area decide to raise prices, people in that area are still forced to buy it.
I believe capitalism doesn’t work without the option of not buying it at all. In markets with few options and that you cannot choose not to buy it, sellers can all collectively jack up prices.
Here’s an FTC report saying that they found that large food retailers used the supply chain issues to make deals with suppliers to supply them over smaller grocery stores. This harmed small local groceries. The report also says they found reason to further investigate the large grocery chains taking advantage of this lack of supply to local groceries to increase prices for customers by more than the increase in input cost. They were able to price gouge because only 8 firms control over half of grocery sales and people can’t choose not to get groceries.