You don't think businesses have a salary cap? It's called an annual budget. And they don't have to institute it league wide. They establish it on themselves if they want to avoid bankruptcy. Sorry, bad analogy.
You don't think that sometimes it's in your best interest to give up freedoms? Tell that to the workers now who submit to an across the board pay cut rather than having a layoff. Sometimes, it needs to happen. I know that there can be layoffs that follow, but that can be a whole other thread to start talking about the state of the ecomony. Unfortunately with the NFL, they are under the impression that they are exempt from the effects of a struggling economy.
BTW, no cap has worked really well in baseball This go-round, both sides must address the issue of putting a cap on rookie salaries.