Yes but ultimately they are answerable to an (often) diverse set of interests, which push them towards a maximum. State owned enterprises ala the USSR were answerable to far fewer interested parties.
What are these 'interested parties' because that sounds like another way to say 'shared holders' -- There is base assumption in such a claim that more is better and that our current system is more optimal than some other system you've heard about.
A curious perspective; fear of options. Emotion over logic.
The market is not "free" as they pretend to be. The US market is essentially the investment market, a small club of extremely powerful WallStreet companies that dominates the investment landscape. In this sense, it is very centrally controlled, if not by the government, but instead by a close elite of capital managers.
A free market would be something like a farmers market where producers sell directly to consumers. Instead, the US stock market is more like a cartel where there is a central group of intermediaries, which control money moves between producers (companies) and buyers (small/medium investors).
> No, a free market is when people are free to make transactions with whoever they please. Big companies are just as free market as mom & pops.
Not really. A company that's big enough to be (even a regional) monopoly forces people to transact with them by virtue of being the only game in town. The question is whether this is a continuous gradient from "more free" to "less free" or more similar to a step function when a company reaches monopoly status.
This is a big country and nobody has their feet nailed to the ground.
Your local supermarket may be the only one in your village, but the next village is easily attainable. Something being more convenient doesn't make it a monopoly.
I grew up in the Air Force. My mom would always shop at the base PX because it was cheaper, and sometimes it was a 30 minute drive away, passing store after store to get there. To make the drive worthwhile, she'd buy 2 weeks worth of groceries at a time.
Reality in America has shown that the same supermarkets that exist in my town also dominate the next town. I don't know what alternate reality you're living on.
I live in the US. Plenty of choice. Even driving 30 minutes like my mom did. I suppose if you live on the tundra in Alaska, it might be a bit farther, but you could always just shoot a bear and eat it.
In Seattle, there are some neighborhoods without stores, but that is usually because the stores cannot handle the shoplifting anymore, and quit. It's still not far to another store outside those neighborhoods.
You can even buy food from Amazon from your Lazy-Boy. Push a button, and food appears on your porch.
If you have a really hard time finding food where you live, may I suggest:
Are you free to make transactions with whoever pleases you? Most certainly not, the stock market (for example) is heavily regulated and controlled top down by Wall Street companies. The same for every other major industry in the USA.
A curious perspective; fear of options. Emotion over logic.