You certainly can steal, threaten the staff, or set the place on fire. To the extent that shop and its people are recognized and protected by laws and government agencies such as the police, you'll likely face serious repercussions. But say the shop is liquidated in Chapter 7 proceedings by Bankruptcy Court, appeals exhausted, ownership of all assets transferred, the building condemned. The shop no longer exists, and in fact may be lawfully demolished.

You could setup a table in the middle of a busy intersection, put some items on it, and declare it to be a shop. That does't make it a shop (or for that matter yours).

What is "ownership" absent law? Is it something you can measure, like gravity, velocity, field strength, pH or temperature? Without the law, a manifestation of government, ownership is simply a belief (which is the antecedent of the law).

> You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

Of course I am. Orwell would be astounded.

I perceive a false dichotomy of big government vs big corporations. While it may be possible to have one without the other, we have the latter (as you point out) courtesy of the former.

Small countries, like mine (.pt), kind of disprove this idyllic vision of small government. Small governments easily fall prey to large multinationals.

USA's woes with oligopolies may have many causes. A government concentrated at the federal level isn't probably one of them.

How would "small" government change it?

Being a European living in a country with a "bigger" relative government (as I understand the way Americans use the term) but with free healthcare and a big data mining debate ongoing, I'm a bit at a loss...