[imgabe]

Well, people being able to heat their homes, drive places, have abundant inexpensive food and all the other things that oil allows tends to reduce suffering.

Is it possible for an industry to increase suffering in a free market? Blood diamonds involve slavery and coercion so that is not really the same. If free people are making free choices to engage in a transaction, it would make sense that they would both only choose things that decrease their own suffering.

[perl4ever]

This is a meaningless question without a definition of freedom. Libertarians often assume that everyone implicitly sees freedom as black and white and the threshold is obviously in the same spot. But it seems to me that everyone engaged in commerce spends the most effort possible avoiding direct competition by exploiting every aspect of every situation that is not completely free.

Consider grocery stores in a typical moderate-sized city and suburbs, where there are 3-4 major chains. You might assume this is a pretty competitive situation, and they should have prices that are pretty close to each other. But the equilibrium seems to be that each one has a different (and frequently changing) set of products that are noticeably cheaper than the others, and a complementary set that are significantly more expensive. A logical explanation of that would be that as long as they guard their prices closely so you can't compare them easily online or whatever, once you go to the store, you are not completely free. If you are buying one thing because it's a good deal, it's easier to buy other things there as well.

The above is something I've noticed first hand, but it's also something I read about years ago from some economist' research paper.

Everything in business is about figuring out how to deny customers freedom at some level. Arguing that the lack of freedom is trivial in a particular example is missing the point that it's a continuous spectrum from trivial inconvenience that makes you spend a dollar more, to brutal slavery, depending on where business activity is bounded by ethics, mores, regulation, etc.

What I'm trying to say is that the term "free market" is always burdened with all sorts of unstated assumptions, so you can't communicate very well by assuming people interpret it the same way.

[imgabe]

By "free" I just mean not under the threat of physical violence.

I'm not sure about the grocery store example. I can think of several different grocery stores near me that have wildly varying prices for similar items. Whole Foods is a lot more expensive than Aldi, for example, and they don't really hide it. They're catering to a different market and offering a certain social cachet in addition to the food that some buyers appear to feel is worth it, as they are free to do.

> A logical explanation of that would be that as long as they guard their prices closely so you can't compare them easily online or whatever, once you go to the store, you are not completely free. If you are buying one thing because it's a good deal, it's easier to buy other things there as well.

Of course you're still free while you're at the store! Being mildly inconvenienced is not an impingement on freedom. Freedom doesn't mean everything is handed to you at maximum convenience. It means it a choice that you can make.

[perl4ever]

My main point is freedom is not a binary thing. Suppose that instead of a slight inconvenience, you have to leave your state. Or you have to move to another state. Or suppose that you have to move to another country. Or suppose that you have to give up everything material and flee your country. Or suppose that you have to sacrifice your family to escape the constraints. Or suppose that you can only kill yourself to escape your situation. It's a matter of degree, not of kind.