Behold: the Market doing Market shit.
The free market sorta means that anyone is going to use any means possible to fuck over their competition, I don't see how this situation is incompatible with that.
An average free market supporter would say this isn’t the free market working.
No, free markets aren’t equivalent to anarchy and every state action isn’t tantamount to violence.
This is an ambiguity in the concept of free markets, which is why we’re having a linguistic versus conceptual discussion.
How can contracts be enforced without coercive force if one party decides not to follow the agreement?
This is an obvious grey area on the abrogation of property rights.
> an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses.
And the word unrestricted is underlined. It seems to me that land use restrictions (I mean, it's literally in the name) are directly working against this philosophy.
In this case someone took a piece of capital (land), and traded most of the rights, but not all to someone else.
The buyer took the deal knowing that they hadn't purchased unrestricted use of that land, but instead a limited use of the land.
Both parties agreed to the deal, and no other party restricted their actions, or unfairly restricted competition. No party was coerced, and they could have negotiated for different terms.\
An example of a great non-market restriction would be: you can't enforce any land use restriction covenants.
Alas, I could be in over my head, but I guess I don't interpret "free market" to mean anarchy (no regulation).
If you go read the actual invisible hand quote from Adam Smith, that so many people are fond of quoting, he is pointing out that the free-market leads to unintended outcomes and side-effects:
"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
His argument is basically that sometimes merchants accidentally do things that benefit society. The unstated opposite is the issue.
The concept of free-markets is nebulous, and thus more of a political football than a serious thing. Every culture has limits on what it will allow of the market, and what is considered not allowed. A monopoly that harms the consumer is not allowed, but we do allow monopolies in circumstances where it would be massively inefficient not to operate as a monopoly (utilities is the most common one, e.g. only one company is allowed to own power lines in your neighborhood).
This is my pet peeve with certain forms of right-wing libertarianism. If it's possible to recreate all the market restrictions of a totalitarian government through private property, markets, and cunning; then what does that kind of libertarianism actually say? Tyranny is only bad if the tyrant hasn't signed the right paperwork?
Depends, should you be "free" to offer terms on land you own, and to "free" to accept those terms when purchasing?
Whenever people talk about "free markets", it often embeds a sneaky internal contradiction between (A) the freedom to operate without worrying about secrets and strange restrictions, versus (B) the freedom to create secrets and strange restrictions on others.
That pattern is a pet-peeve of mine: People will celebrate a "free market" as being theoretically optimal when everyone has perfect information about prices and deals... Then the next day others will pooh-pooh concerns over cartels, because a "free market" enables defectors to make secret deals with hidden prices. I wouldn't be surprised if in some cases they ended up being the same people.
The state meddling in the market would be if two parties agree to a contract, and then one party gets the state to pass a law that changes the terms of the contract to the benefit of one party. Like 'right to work laws,' for example.
For a more obvious example: if all the companies that sell smartphones agreed to form a cartel to raise prices, the state preventing them from making that agreement would make the market for smartphones more free, not less.
Imposing a restriction on this means that the government is saying that these two individuals cannot conduct private business in a certain way.
Now do I agree with this? Hell no, land use restrictions should be legislated into oblivion and companies should not be able to make flagrant abuse of monopolistic behavior to destroy essential businesses for towns. But this is as pure of a free market interaction as you can get, with all the downsides.
Not at all established. Monopolies require strong states to exist.
How so? When competition can merely be purchased, why wouldn't the larger company do so? Or if the competitor doesn't want to sell, the larger company can undercut them until they're forced to sell or exit the market. No government required for either tactic, and there are plenty of examples of both occurring in US history. For example, Standard Oil, which was formed when about 40 smaller companies joined forces.
Another place where monopolies take root with no state input is when there's a large barrier to entry, such as with railroads. The cost (and justifying the cost to investors) is too much for most companies to even break ground, let alone complete. For example, Bell System, which owned the copper in the ground and the equipment producer Western Electric.
Now then, of course a state can and do also raise the cost of entry for new competitors - but then we're going to be talking about a regulated market.
Unregulated markets are not the "natural" state of a market, and not the meaning of a "free" market. A free market is one in which there is competition and new agents are able to enter the market, not ones where there is no law.
"In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority."
That's why we have anti-monopoly laws, so that we can have markets. In recent decades, the interpretation of anti-monopoly has transitioned a bit to focus more on consumerism rather than markets, and the definition of monopoly has shifted from "is there a sole provider" to "is the dominant market player causing consumer harm."
But originally, before that shift, anti-monopoly laws were in favor of markets.
Edit - we’re talking about two markets - groceries and land. Rules in one market (land) are being used to create a monopoly in the other (groceries). While the land market may still be “free”, the grocery market is not. And now we devolve into debate about what’s better - textbook free markets or markets that require government intervention to ensure the most social good.
On the flip side, without the government to enforce a contract one party has broken, there would be no reason to ever fulfill a contract - you'd have to rely on citizen's force, and history has not shown that it's been particularly good to rely on regular citizens.
Betting on government inaction for breaking the law is still using the government. If it is illegal, then a competing grocery store should be able to open its doors and any lawsuits thrown out. Considering Albertsons’ and other grocery store’s lawyers are not willing to bet on this, it must be clearly illegal, which is again, a problem the government has to solve.
a competing company could open a store there anyway and then fight the battle in court; they might even win, but the cost of the court case would prevent most companies from even trying, after all groceries are a relatively low margin business--if this were a gold mine instead of grocery store you can be sure someone would have opened it already and fought it in court
Any contract that intends to reduce the amount of buyers or sellers could be made unenforceable.
This is clearly illegal, the fact that nothing has been done about it yet says nothing about it being legal or illegal. Just because a crime has been going on for years or is difficult to prove in court does not mean it is not a crime. As we type there are multiple monopolies that are illegal and could be tried in court but aren't. Those companies are not "using" the government to get away with it, they are using their money and influence to escape consequences for as long as possible. Again, call it what it is. A crime.
with liberty and justice for all?