Monopoly pricing and price fixing are not any of the individual behaviors necessary to get a market price, and that's all I was arguing.
In the absence of monopolies and cartels, market prices will emerge from individual behaviors, without any one individual having the power to set the price.
> a competitive market is a meaningless phantasy that cannot possibly exist.
If competitive markets don't exist empirically, that's not a flaw in the theory of Classical economics, it is merely a symptom of corrupt culture and politics. It means we don't really have a free-market system---
What we have today is more akin to Mercantilism. And with income inequality increasing at an accelerating rate, our society will soon devolve back into Feudalism.
> Your attempted counter-argument...
My argument isn't with you. My argument is strictly anti-monopoly and pro-competition.