Let alone the fact that we are only talking about economic freedom now, which is only one of many interacting facets of politics that can't really be isolated.
Let alone the fact that we are only talking about economic freedom now, which is only one of many interacting facets of politics that can't really be isolated.
Allowing companies to buy any companies has issues. Not allowing companies to buy other companies also has issues. So how could any intermediate situation not have issues? If it forbids in some cases, it will have some of the problems associated with forbidding. If it allows in some cases, it will have some of the problems associated with lenience.
The argument I responded to was essentially asserting the existence of a non-capitalist solution that would have prevented Apple from buying FoundationDB without negative consequences. If I successfully argue that there are no perfect solutions, than that undermines the argument to which I was replying, and forces the poster to engage with the issue in more detail than just "capitalism is bad".
You seem to reason in really absolutist terms. You can have an open economy, where a government can still intervene if the current market situation has an extremely negative effect on society.
E.g. breaking cartels, monopolies or oligopolies where they seriously hurt a population does not throw away all the benefits of capitalism.
The disadvantage of one extreme is that you cannot have free enterprise, the other extreme is that you might end up with a few megacorps who control the market and ultimately society. In the middle you have a situation where there is free enterprise, but as a cooperation you also have to play by the rules that were set up to maintain fair competition and avoid centralisation of power.
The middle situation faces the potential of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture. This state-enforced monopoly is a small-scale manifestation of the complete state monopoly associated with 100% state ownership. The only way to completely avoid regulatory capture is to have no regulatory agencies, but this of course brings troubles of its own. There's no perfect middle.