>> A government bureaucrat managing the country’s only deodorant factory could never possibly match the range of options and preferences that the market has provided me.
There aren't only two options - the free market, or soviet russia. there are many more.
I would argue that preventing an individual from creating a new deodorant (or any typical consumer product) because "there is already enough of them" is a defining philosophical difference - either you are for freedom, or you are for collective coercion.
In my opinion, there are never enough deodorant brands. If a new entrant wants to make a new product, it will succeed or fail. It may compete on price or quality, it may drive out another brand, it may expand the market for deodorant by targeting a type of skin sensitivity that wasn't targeted before, it may do any number of things.
But there will never be enough deodorants. There can always be room for one more, and to prevent an individual for trying to make another is the moment we go on the path to Soviet Russia.
>> either you are for freedom, or you are for collective coercion.
Strong words. I'm somewhere in the middle. i'm not offering to send anybody to any Gulag. But taxing some useless products ? or structuring market competition towards real benefits and not bullshit ? sure.
"either you are for freedom, or you are for collective coercion."
This is a false dichotomy, and the happiest nations on earth have a mix of market regulation and individual freedom.
And, that's an odd dig at life in Soviet Russia. It certainly was not the worst way of life -- I've known quite a few people living in all parts of the world who grew up in the Soviet system and longed for it, wishing for a return to that way of life while knowing it'd never happen.
There aren't only two options - the free market, or soviet russia. there are many more.