Even if you did infuriate your neighbors to the point where the guy at the general store wouldn't deal with you - you could pick up and move somewhere else, not even that far away, and it would all be fine.
That's absolutely not the case today. If you get hit by the wrong company, you can be denied the right to participate in swaths of society. And no matter where you go, they're there. You can't get away. Their power extends throughout the country, and often outside of it too.
And as society changed in this manner, we've done nothing to ensure our freedoms remain protected. We've mostly thrown up our hands and decided by default that it was okay because at least the government wasn't doing it - even though corporations hold just as much power to make your life absolutely miserable. It seems a little silly to point out they can't arrest you - oh, sure, not directly, but they can do a whole lot to you short of that, and they can go a long way towards getting you arrested.
The ability to fire you and give scathing negative references to any prospective future employers (thus in turn eradicating one's ability to participate in a market-driven economy/society) is just as severe of a penalty, and imposing that penalty for the purposes of silencing political dissent is just as reprehensible. We're (hopefully) critical of that having happened in retrospect during the era of McCarthyism and Red Scares; why should we be expected to accept that as "okay" now?
And that's all even without the ability to lobby politicians to make laws in their benefit / at your expense.