[lapsed_pacifist]

The difference is the consent of the governed.

I cannot refuse to consent to being governed by the State. Plenty of democratically elected governments have oppressed and abused their citizens.

I can refuse to exchange goods and services with a private entity, or refuse to work for them. I consent to the authority of my employer.

[diragon]

This might have been true in the past when corporations were more limited. However, as corporations grow, their power is becoming ad hoc equivalent to those of the state.

You will have even less consent to being governed when you're governed by corporation heads, who will be more and more like lords and barons from the middle ages.

[antifa]

>I can refuse to exchange goods and services with a private entity, or refuse to work for them.

Not if they buy the road you live on to set up tolls, or buy your town, or make deals with the local death squads to be the sole suplier in your area, etc.

[perl4ever]

>make deals with the local death squads to be the sole suplier in your area

Mysteriously, all the major grocery chains in my area switched from Buitoni to Rana tortellini a few years ago. I don't like the latter and refuse to buy it.

I never thought of it being the death squads.

It is a good point that markets are always run by someone and are never free in the sense of ungoverned.

However, relationships with private entities tend to not be geographically exclusive in most cases. Whereas governments usually are.

I could move to another city or state, but unless I uproot myself, I'm stuck with one city, one county, one state, and one country.

There could be more competition, say, between Lowe's and Home Depot, but if I really want something and hypothetically they are colluding, I can probably find it somewhere locally, or online.