Markets create the illusion of choice between monopolies.

I don't like monopolies because they restrict my freedom far more than zoning codes do.

Ultimately markets are not a democratic choice. You can choose a Mac or a PC, or Amazon vs Netflix.

You (often) can't choose to join a union, to get affordable healthcare that won't bankrupt you, or to have a national policy that prioritises the needs of renters over the profits of private equity.

> I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.

That might be a literal case of Chesterton's fence.

Depends which objection you mean...

But your choices are more limited than you might think. Ultimately what's available to you is decided by the economic machinery upstream.

"I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own."

Fair enough but not all option spreads are equal. For example having 35 flavors of snack chips in the grocery store is objectively less valuable than food being broadly affordable, or any of a number of other things that would be directly hostile to shareholder value.

You don't like zoning codes because to date nobody has tried to build a trash incinerator next door to where you live, which ironically is evidence that zoning kinda works.

> That objection applies to the other options as well.

True.

> I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own.

What about when it doesn't? Markets consolidate. They form monopolies and duopolies. The only counterbalance in this situation, the only entities more powerful than massive multinational corporations, are governments and regulators.

I think the problem is the faith that any system will self-regulate, whether the system is economic or political, as if we can just write the founding rules of the system, and then the system will take care of itself and operate to the greatest benefit of the public.

Markets can get captured by wealthy interests. Governments can get captured by wealthy interests. Corruption is perpetual. Those who seek benefit for themselves will interfere in the system, so those who seek to preserve the public benefit must also interfere in the system. Not the invisible hand but eternal vigilance is required. The question is not whether the government will interfere in the markets; the question is who will control that interference, the masses of voters or the much smaller "donor" class.

> I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own.

Are you making your own choices?

Do you sincerely believe that when one of the largest pillars of the American economy right now is staffed from top to bottom with PhD holders who use everything they know about psychology to make you think certain ways? To want shit you don't need? To make you play games you don't like? To make you consume art that makes you feel nothing? To make you hate people you don't know? To make you eat food that makes you feel shitty? Do you really make your own choices?

To be clear this is not meant as an attack. I'm just saying there are trillions of dollars on the line in making people, at scale, make choices. Do you really believe you are an island, free from influence? Do you honestly think your wants, needs, desires are not socially informed?