No. A democracy says that 51% of the people get to decide for everyone. One size fits all.
A free market says that anyone can buy any product/service any way that they (as an individual) like, as long as that product/service is available at a price they can afford.
To me[fn], #1 sounds like "mob rule" and #2 sounds like "freedom to choose".
[fn] I am certain that many will disagree with this formulation.
Yes freedom to choose what the sellers choose to sell which is determined by what is most profitable. Those things can include many things that are not in any way optimal from the perspective of the consumer. For instance fatty addictive foods. Sure you get to decide, but go to a grocery store. Most of the things there are garbage. Why? Well they are profitable to sell. They are addictive. They are cheap to produce so you can get a high margin. They are loaded with salt, sugar, carbs. They are made of corn. That's a parable for the whole economy.
People only produce profitable things, and that profit has to be significant, i.e. 3x for many food items. So you get a few corporation with billion dollar budgets that dominate the market with variations of the same thing, 100s of kinds of potato chips or whatever. And shut out variety, health and so on. You have choice to buy, but the seller has the choice to sell you whatever and destroy smaller competitors through competition and limit variety. Those shelves cost a lot of money and only the most profitable things stay on them, that's by design.
You can not compete with these guys because they have an economy of scale and you will no matter how hard you try achieve the same level of efficiencies to have any significant impact on the market. And even if you do, they will copy you or buy you out and then slowly turn whatever you were trying to do in the profit objective, corrupting it.
Well, sure. I wouldn't expect people to produce products for my benefit at a loss. It wouldn't be possible for them to do so if I wanted them to anyway.
Going back to the original topic, IF I am doing a project in an area without too many fresh food choices because my neighbors like crappy food (and for right now, I am), isn't having a big corporation like Amazon being able to ship me fresh food that isn't available to me locally, a good thing? More choices?
Now, maybe your point is really that Amazon's ability to ship me fresh fruits and vegetables is unreasonably harsh on the local green grocer. Which it might be. But I don't understand how Amazon (a retailer, not a food manufacturer) will corrupt the food at some point in the future?
Sure. Who would pay $1000 for an iPhone when it could be had for $100? But nobody is forcing people to eat Big Macs instead of fresh salad. And if people want to buy Big Macs, who are we to democratically decide that this option should be off the table for them?
If people are willing to pay more for products from local shops rather than Amazon (or high quality food rather than fast food), then it will be profitable to sell those products. If Parisians in general prefer local shops over Amazon, then the local shops will stay.
You should be lobbying Parisians to vote with their wallets instead of lobbying government to use violence to satisfy your preference. Of course, Parisians are already voting with their wallets, and if Amazon really is a threat to local shops, then Parisians obviously prefer Amazon's offering.
Why should they pay more? People like value. Given two products they will always pay less. I think there is a small minority that pays premium for local, difference, culture, the masses want as much value as possible. Price is a significant motivator of purchasing decision. And most people barely earn enough money to justify premium purchasing decisions.
People are dumb idiot sheep well under the thumb of corporations. They are irrational and yet act in predictable ways when serviced by large corporations which are looking to create a monoculture.
If you want any sense of culture, of variety, of difference, then you should never ever buy this argument of letting people vote with their wallets, because we know what that leads to, it leads to the cheapest lowest cost goods and economies of scales dominate the market and create a monoculture.
Big fish at the expense of the little guys always win this game of letting people vote with wallets. And those big fish are usually not local and they sell everyone the same thing, all over the globe.
A free market says that anyone can buy any product/service any way that they (as an individual) like, as long as that product/service is available at a price they can afford.
To me[fn], #1 sounds like "mob rule" and #2 sounds like "freedom to choose".
[fn] I am certain that many will disagree with this formulation.