There are many immoral laws, and whatever law is being thrown at them in this case is one such.
I also think it was immoral to stop MSFT from selling their product as they saw fit---with Windows and IE bundled. So you can't accuse me of being partial to one set of companies over another.
What the best approximation you can acheive to a free market is depends on exactly what the features of the concrete set of products you are concerned with is, what features of the free market you prioritize approximating, and what technology (both technical and social) is available in the environment you are working in.
Wouldn't that be the most efficient free market? One in which only the most brutal and powerful ideas and companies prevail (with money)?
"Free market" is not synonymous with "anything goes." It's a specific economic (rather than ideological) concept. Most economists believe that certain rules and restrictions are necessary to have any functioning market at all.
The usual economic definition of efficiency would be maximizing utility experienced by market participants, not maximizing production.
Currency-denominated "product" measurements are a common proxy measure for utility, but that's a compromise to the inability to measure utility directly.
That's not really how you keep a market free. A free market requires regulation. Without it, you get a market dominated by monopolies and cartels, rather than open competition.
I don't know how much I agree with that, but your opinion certainly isn't universal.
Of course, with sufficient lack of regulation, it also becomes possible to just shoot people who monopolize stuff.
Libertarians are not a single group of people - and most libertarians agree that government is necessary to ensure the Law is respected - only a fraction of libertarians actually think no government is necessary at all. What most libertarians agree on is that Big Government is a Bad thing, not that it should be completely removed.
A free market is one which is free from government price intervention - subsidies, price floors, price ceilings but also free of monopolies and cartels. In practice, a government may need to step in to break up a monopoly or stop an anti-competitive cartel to maintain a free market.
So when the government itself initiates force in the market, it is not a free market.
There is no such thing as a monopoly without the use of force. You can temporarily have companies that have a very large share of their respective markets, but monopoly is not properly defined as "a very large company."
A cartel is just an opportunity for other people to make money by undercutting the cartel. For instance, if the cartel is maintaining artificially low wages, the competitor can take advantage by paying "normal" wages and getting the best employees. Hence, a cartel is not stable. (Unless it has government force backing it---as all modern successful cartels do.)
But in a free market, contractual agreements would be upheld and enforced by an agreed upon arbiter.
In libertarianism, "free market" means, "I'll shoot you if you try to make me pay taxes!".
The difference is glaring.
Looking at it another way...these companies are trying to keep their costs down (labor being #1). This in turn allows them to charge lower prices for their products while maintaining a profit margin that keeps investors happy. They are serving their consumers. We should be thanking them for being prudent and not engaging in labor bidding wars that would push their costs skyward. This is capitalism 101.
Even still your analogy is still wrong...you are talking about banana consumers (which inherently will always go for the cheapest banana products that satisfy their needs) vs. a business who is trying to keep their costs down to remain competitive.
There is an saying that everything in business should be viewed from the eyes of the consumer. If the consumer is getting the same product for cheaper and the business model is still viable (aka the business can sustain that price) then it's a net win.
Again in your example, banana producers will lower their prices until they cannot be viable and thus they will stop supplying bananas. You cannot collude enough to keep failing business models in business.
I'm talking about companies that buy bananas, not consumers. The supply chain looks like Farmers -> Dole/Chiquita -> You. If Dole and Chiquita colluded to keep the cost of bananas from farmers low, that is collusion that creates economic inefficiency.
> There is an saying that everything in business should be viewed from the eyes of the consumer. If the consumer is getting the same product for cheaper and the business model is still viable (aka the business can sustain that price) then it's a net win.
This "saying" is blathering that has no basis in economics.