Free As In Market

[A short story I wrote after reading too much 1984. The names were assigned pseudo-randomly and are not related to the person's character or opinions.]

FREE AS IN MARKET

“Today we celebrate 15 years of Freedom...”, spoke the loud voice over the microphone. The owner of the voice was a fat man dressed in a hand-made silken suit, with neat golden buttons and a bright red colour – a stark contrast to the mass-produced dark coloured rags everyone else in the room was wearing.

The speaker was the Manager of the local WeSave, the largest supermarket in the parts. In fact the only supermarket left in the country. To be exact the only food market of any kind left. The crowd in front of him was pretty much everyone in the village, including a particular young lady named Chantelle.

She wasn't there because she wanted to be there. Saying she was forced would be too hard, it was a free world after all. However at these sort of events they generally handed out coupons, so it was always worth spending 20 minutes cheering and clapping.

The speech went on for longer than expected, but the crowd never ceased its feigned interest. He went on to speak of how much better the world was without government interferences, about how much content the world was when the government signed in the “Freedom of Economy” act, which greatly reduced the power of the government. Nobody had seemed to notice that the Honourable Dr Byron was the owner of the largest Telecommunications company in the country. It was the first time in history that both political parties had agreed that they both liked money, and they would be able to make much more without pesky interferences. Of course this was not part of the speech, the speech was all about how now everyone was free to live their own lives, and how they now had a choice what they wanted to do.

Finally the speech was over, and Chantelle, not feeling much more comforted, walked over to her car. She drove a Walzbach – same as a third of the population. A few days after the Freedom of Economy act, the Union of Car Manufacturers had a meeting.

Within this meeting, the three largest car Manufacturers reached an agreement. Research and Development, and producing different styles of cars was too expensive. Moreover the market was already big enough to divide amongst three without needing to waste additional money trying to compete. And so the three companies produced a car each, and pulled the rest out of market. There was no difference between the cars – equal price, equal specifications, equal body. The only difference was the symbol on the front of the car. Of course there were people who would bet anything that the Walzbachs were the most fuel efficient, and others used to choose the rarest car in their neighbourhood so they'd be different – but the truth was,they were exactly the same inside.

She got into the car and sighed deeply. Fuel was running low again. It was always running low. She decided to go to the supermarket and cash in her coupon, she could use the food anyway, and there was still an hour left until she was needed at her job. She pulled her car into gear and drove off the the local WeSave.

She reached the store within a few minutes. A large sign bore over the entrance “WeSave : The Only Place to Shop”. It was true, literally and metaphorically. All the other shops had be bought by the WeSave company a while back. Those which resisted were undercut with special offers and coupons being handed out. That's how progress works of course. If you can't compete, you disappear into nothingness. That was also part of today's speech of course.

She walked in. An exceptionally large queue each register caught her eye. It seemed as if everyone chose the same hour to go shopping. Around the shop stood a number of private security guards, keeping an eye out for shoplifters and those who were banished from the shop. A large wall of shame stood near the entrance, with photographs of those who were disallowed entry. Chantelle spotted one such character being dragged out of the shop by a pair of security guards. A third was walking behind them and having a loud conversation with the man who was none too happy at being dragged outside.

“Sir, you're not allowed entry for this week. Its your own fault for complaining about the queue the other day. Next time if you shut up and just waited like everyone else, you would be able to get your groceries. If you don't like our policies you can just go to another shop, or start your own. That's how the free market works.”

The man being dragged out yelled loudly back, “There is no other store for 30 kilometers, and the closest store after that is another damned WeMart. As for starting my own, when Mr Andreas tried to do that, no supplier wanted to give him anything, citing exclusive agreements, and you kicked him out of here for life.”

The guards finished dragging him out of the building, and the chief security guard muttered “Troublemaker” to himself as he modified the length of the banishment to account for this latest event.

Chantelle sighed a bit. She had seen it happen tons of times already so she wasn't impressed. Eventually they'd all go in, beg for the general manager to forgive them, or turn to stealing. Anyone found giving foodstuffs to one of those banned ones would be banned themselves, though there was a minor black-market for such goods.

She found the bakery section and picked up some WeMart branded Flour. It was the only brand available, and was composed mostly of chalk – apparently an unpublished scientific article discovered that adding chalk minimised a large amount of Medical Problems. WeMart themselves had paid for this research of course. It was a good thing too, she thought to herself as she placed it into the basket, for she couldn't afford the hospital if she got ill.

At least, she was free. Free as in Market.