How did that competition between private companies work out for US hath system? Are Americans getting better bang for the buck? Are they getting faster internet at home due to competition between ISPs? Are Americans getting more paid vacation days due to the private market competition between employers? Why didn't competition between auto makers result in more efficient and less polluting engines until the EPA and EU forced them in the 80's? Did competition between food manufactures got them to eliminate lead and arsenic from food or was it government regulation that did it?
Competition existing doesn't automagically prevent or fix monopolies, duopolies, price fixing and other anti-competitive behavior from private entities who have the power to shape the market in their favor. Do you know why all those things are illegal even in the US? Because they work. If it wouldn't work it wouldn't have been made illegal. Private entities can much more easily collide to screw over consumers than consumers can collectively unite to do anything about it themselves. That's why governments and regulations exist.
The high competition is usually also the root of the evil, since they need to do things that other would not to get an advantage. Like using child labor somewhere. Create a solution for non-existent problem but then lobby some laws which will create this problem. There is no moral in public companies.
Elected politicians compete intensely with each other. Polling, focus groups, and pandering are common in democratic countries because people running for office want to do things that make voters like them. The system is far from perfect but you seem to be arguing that the government is free to use violence however it wants without consequence which is not at all realistic.
Companies collude to eliminate competition all the time. Or use tactics that make competition impossible.
And don't use violence? Give me a break. Even small scale companies like Wizards of the Coast sent the fucking Pinkertons after someone for possessing a magic card. You think Amazon is out here existing violence free? You think Nestle's suppliers are making chocolate without any violence.
Reminder: the term "free markets" originally referred to markets free of the distorting effects of monopoly. To ensure markets remain free, fair and available to all, legislators need to intervene. Otherwise they go to sh*t.
As aside, it's a common misconception that the EU acts to protect EU companies from outside competition. They don't. It's a side-effect of their mission to keep the EU a free market.
uhhh, in your example, a subsidiary of chevron paid the government to attack protestors. I'm sure there are small examples of companies actually conducting violence, but you should feel bad about yourself in that you couldn't even muster the effort to find something that disproved my point.
If you're suggesting the government should not be able to exert violence because corporations aren't, I'm listening but I suspect you haven't thought this through.
>and are not allowed to use violence to exert their will.
Define violence.
You may look at this and think "What are you, stupid?" But stick with me for a bit. Let's grab a few examples of free market atrocities. Asbestos; thalidomide; hexavalent chromium; fossil fuels (and hiding research since the 60's about climate change); the sugar industry (also famous for it's scientific gaslighting); Purdue pharmaceuticals, Oxycontin, and it's coincidental treatment for opiate addiction which was in the pipeline...
Now lets grab a few definitions of violence and see if we can bucket some of these into them without too much trouble.
Definitions numbered top of page to bottom. Are there any acts that fit the word violence that companies regularly do?
Take a look at # 7, quoted here:
7) Injury done to anything which is entitled to respect, reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement; violation.
Companies do that all the effing time. In point of fact, it's practically their reason to exist at all. The corporation was initially formulated as a risk-impact distribution tool. That there is risk associated with it, implies an understanding that the vehicle can do harm.
And before you go saying "but that's not the legal definition..." I'm going to head that off with a single word, "Yet", and further seal off the wiggle room by referring you to the practical outcomes of all these allegedly non-violent exercises of corporate power; the scarring for life if not termination of of life by the thousands to million. You don't get kill counts that high through acts of human artifice, and still get to hide behind the bulwark of "but it wasn't violence" a kill via indirection is still a kill. a life ends or is irrepairably harmed. While their is a practical lenience extended based on the matter of human imperfections and inability to know everything, be everywhere at once; with technology, nowadays the old platitudes tend to ring a bit hollow. Where executives can literally sit on event streams created by their corporate systems; where reports that unequivocally say "bad shit'll happen", and it gets buried instead of escalated for the consideration of all; and to what end? To what benefit are these atrocities committed at the expense of the common good? The self enrichment of the few, and consolidation of wealth and power.
That my friend, is inarguably violence. That doesn't even require the 4th sense of violence either.
