DanielVogelbach wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 4:16 am
Well the UK is also infinitely less free than it was in 1776. That's just how government goes. True freedom is anarchy and self ownership. There are no free markets in the UK or USA. It's all regulated and controlled. There is some competition at the lower levels of the economy, but as you move up it just becomes more and more controlled.
The ruling class is not dumb. They know what they can get away with, and they know how to do things slowly over time.
Nobody is going to stop shopping at a supermarket that raises their prices, because prices are increased across the board. There is no choice in the matter. You either pay the increased prices on bread and eggs, or you don't buy them. The only recourse anyone has is to raise their own livestock or grow their own produce.
The Federal Reserve and all central banks are a key piece to all of this, because the money is no longer real. You can't exchange it for gold or silver like you could in the past. This is why prices have skyrocketed. It's simple currency devaluation without the gold standard to get in the way. It's theft, just like taxation. But, nobody stops using their fiat currency. Everyone pays their taxes. Nobody is burning anything to the ground. Everyone is obedient.
It's easy to spout all the fancy theory, DV—we all did economics at school and you can sit behind Laissez-Faire, Adam Smith, Friedman, or Keynes—but the reality is that you can't just promote a theory and pretend everyone blindly follows it. But, if you're going to do that, I'll talk about Charles Tiebout, Harold Hotelling, and Joseph Bertrand. Nobody gives a shit about their names in the UK, but we absolutely followed their logic here—and the UK is something which I think I have a fraction more knowledge about, having lived here for half a century. I've visited the US 20 times now, so I can compare a little of what I see over there to what I know from home. I see what you are looking at. Your theory does possibly hold for the USA—but it is far from what actually happens in the UK.
You say it's infinitely less 'free' than 1776, but let's be real. Life back then was shite and let's be honest..... short. We don't generally die in our 30s or 40s now. Back then, there was a 30% chance kids would die before they even reached the age of 10. The Industrial Revolution was underway, but hey, maybe 'They' wanted us to do that? Food prices were completely volatile due to the weather; a bad summer or a cold winter literally led to people starving to death in their villages. I’ll take a regulated modern market over bleeding to death from a tooth infection in a 1776 ditch any day of the week—although that's just what they want us to think, isn't it?
So now that's out of the way, can we talk about reality? In particular I want to focus on the bit in bold.
The idea that 'nobody is going to stop shopping at a supermarket that raises their prices' is completely wrong. British shoppers aren't just submissive; we vote with our wallets, and we've been doing it for years.
Look at the actual data from the last 20 years which I post for your analysis. When the big traditional supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons) got comfortable and started hiking prices, the British public didn't just sit there and take it. They mass-migrated to Aldi and Lidl.
Back in 2006, Aldi and Lidl were barely a blip over here—they had about 2% of the market. Today, they’ve smashed their way up to more than 18% of the market. That's over a 900% growth in terms of real numbers—going from feeding around 1.3 million people to 12.2 million today. That's quite a phenomenal amount of people turning away from the giants. Aldi literally overtook Morrisons to become one of the biggest players in the country.
That didn't happen because people are 'obedient.' It happened because when the big guys put prices up on everyday essentials like bread and eggs, millions of the struggling classes said 'stuff that' and took their money elsewhere. Your view of the public reminds me of that classic Monty Python sketch: “You are all individuals!” “Yes, we are all individuals!” “I’m not!” You think everyone is just a mindless crowd blindly following the corporate script.
But they didn't. Granted, the full revolution didn't happen because the middle classes mostly stayed put—some people will always prefer the status quo—but enough people voted with their feet to force the corporate giants into massive price wars. Now we have 'Aldi Price Matches' everywhere just to keep their heads above water.
It’s not a perfect system, but it completely disproves your theory. People did have a choice, they did use it, and they forced the big supermarkets to behave, albeit only to some degree. Alright, it's not a total Free Market—that doesn't exist anywhere—but while you might all be defeated and obedient over in the US, UK shoppers actually police the market when they’re being ripped off. Whether we did it entirely ourselves or Lidl and Aldi came in to help us do it—who cares? The end result is exactly the same.
- uk supermarkets.jpg (61.1 KiB) Viewed 61 times
Honestly, you are close to projecting an insular view. Just because you are suffering over there doesn't mean the rest of the world is. Poland is said to be absolutely flying with over 3% economic growth. Spain and Portugal are having a massive economic boom, growing twice as fast as the traditional big hitters. Over in Sweden and Switzerland, inflation is virtually non-existent, sitting at around 1%. They have stable prices, massive wages. But what do I know, I don't live there - they might be shit holes for all we know?
And by the way a cup of coffee now costs less in the UK than the US. And we ain't growing our own beans in our back gardens...
