If people are free and still use the products of the “exploiters”, they have accepted it. If they are free and don’t accept, there will be a better company. There are many ways to found new companies in a free society, but, it obviously depends on do people want it.
But if there is only one game in town, people have no choice. Is that freedom?
Cell/mobile phone service that costs $12.00 per month in Australia, or $15.00 in France averages ~$62.00 in the US.
Broadband in France at $31.00, or $36,00 in Germany, averages ~ $70.00 in the US -- for much lower speeds and poor reliability. Why is that?
Why must American students take out extortionate loans just to get an education, while in Denmark you're paid to attend university? Need I mention American healthcare or pharmaceuticals?
It is difficult to found a new company in the US. We are no longer "the land of opportunity." Social mobility in Europe has far outstripped that in the US.
Who can compete with Wall Mart or Disney, or Bayer?
Four health insurance companies dominate the US market; four for cell phone service. All major industries -- news, food, agriculture, electronics, pharmaceuticals, education, &al, have been subsumed by monopolies that control entire markets and regions, stifle all competition, and fix prices. A similar monopoly obtains in our two-party political system.
This is not freedom.
It is sad, if politicians have been decimated so that they can't protect freedom. And I can agree that they do poor job nowadays. If it is so, I don’t think the society is truly free anymore.
The politicians work for the Corporations, not the people.
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
FDR's New Deal policies, designed to protect the public interests from corporate and banking greed, have been undermined by right-wing legislation, paid for and promoted by right-wing politicians. Same with LBJ's Great Society legislation. And things really began falling apart with the Reagan revolution, with almost all barriers to corporate, banking, and media exploitation removed. Wages, general prosperity, security and opportunity plummeted.
Not "freedom."
If you want to drive, you are a polluter. If you use things that need electricity, you are a polluter. I think it is good not to spoil environment, but I think some “pollution” is not necessarily bad. For example, CO2 is very important for plants to grow, not reasonable to try to avoid the way people now try to do.
Salt on food is good, too, but problematic in excess. The way we "now try to do things" is not helping plants. It's creating deserts and crashing the planetary ecology.
Very disappointing, would have expected them to be more reasonable. But, I wouldn’t call that privatized, if individuals can’t get freely own panels. I think in that case there is corporate tyranny or fascism ruling that country, because government and companies have teamed up against the people. I would call that oligarchy.
Corporate stifles private, then promotes legislation securing their corporate dominance and preventing free enterprise and private entrepreneurs.
Not freedom.
Till recently, Fascism was defined, and generally understood to be, a collusion between government and corporate interests. It grows like a cancer, undermining competition, prosperity and security, till some disaster occurs, everything falls apart, and checks and balances -- "regulations" -- are reapplied.
And the cycle begins anew.
