Question to laissez-faire capitalists

[synthesis]

Here's something I've always wondered.

Why are anti-trust laws "bad"?

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2004, 05:46 AM
Here's something I've always wondered.

Why are anti-trust laws "bad"?
They are usually an opposition to free trade.

Not only that, they are usually arbitary.

[apathy maybe]

Another question to the capitalists,
Is Microsoft good? (It does restrice free trade after all.)

[synthesis]

Originally posted by Professor [email protected] 31 2004, 11:19 PM
They are usually an opposition to free trade.
So is 'free trade' preferable to competition? Why?

P.S. Were you going to reply to my welfare post?

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by DyerMaker+Jun 1 2004, 06:29 AM--> (DyerMaker @ Jun 1 2004, 06:29 AM)
Professor [email protected] 31 2004, 11:19 PM
They are usually an opposition to free trade.
So is 'free trade' preferable to competition? Why?
[/b]
There isn't a dichotomy.


P.S. Were you going to reply to my welfare post?

When I get round to it. Some of us have to work for a living, you know.


Another question to the capitalists,
Is Microsoft good? (It does restrice free trade after all.)

Explain how it does this.

[apathy maybe]

Microsoft has established an effective monopoly on desktop machines. They did this through first a partner ship with IBM and then by being big enough that they just rolled along. Their office suite (MS Office) runs only on Windows (and sort of on Macs). Because they have an effective monopoly on the office side it has become a de-facto (if very bad) standard. They restrict trade by not opening up their formats for other companies, this means that other companies have to invest time and effort to reverse engineer the standards to make their product compatible. But MS can break this at any time when they introduce a new format.

Not only that, because they have an effective monopoly the can ship programs with the OS. These become widely used, not because they are good, but because they are right there. MS IE has about 90% of the browser market I think, this allows MS to effectively set standards for the web 'cause web developers ignore the other 10% of the market. Do you know about the browser wars? IE won. But the real reason to get IE the standard was so that Netscape wouldn't be able to sell their server packages.

And because Windoze is so prevalent MS can force hardware companies to ship only Windoze machines. If the hardware companies try and ship other OSes, MS gets angry and revokes the contract. The hardware company can't sell many computers 'cause most people know and are used to Windoze, and don't want another OS.

And what is Ironic is that a Distro of Linux is being shipped with $US300 computers by another effective monopoly (Wal-Mart).


So even thought there are superior products on the market, people don't use or buy them 'cause they are used to MS and aren't techie enough to learn (in fact most people don't want to change anything they do).

[Hate Is Art]

I also heard Microsoft purposefuly left room open for updates, e.g. not programming everything to the maximum, so people who have to buy the next edition of Windows "X".

[James]

oh oh oh, i have one.
Where and how do you draw the line between social and economic issues (when you are legislating that is)?

[Shredder]

I have a question for Laizeiziz-fair capitalists.

What do you think about intellectual property laws?

For example, when I buy a music CD, I.M.O. I should be able to burn it in ideal capitalism. I own the CD and the computer to burn it. But bourgeois law currently states that I can't sell the burned CD because I don't own the ideas on it. But I am a materialist (as opposed to idealist.) What is an idea but matter arranged a certain way? Indeed, I don't own the matter in the musician's brain, but he sold me the matter on the CD, and therefore I own it, right? Wrong, says bourgeois law. Intellectual property law is law whereby a capitalist can sell me something, yet still own it; and I can buy something, but not resell it! But on the other side of the coin, if there are no patent laws, one company will eventually make everything because they can do it more efficiently through vertically integrated economies of scale and all that. And if there's only one company and it makes things efficiently, we might as well just move to communism.

[Nyder]

It's the same thing as preventing someone from walking into your house and robbing you blind. It's protecting the ownership over your own property.

[Invictus]

For example, when I buy a music CD, I.M.O. I should be able to burn it in ideal capitalism. I own the CD and the computer to burn it.

You do not own the music...the music is still owned by the artist. What you purchase when you buy a CD is the right to listen to the content.

[DaCuBaN]

Microsoft has established an effective monopoly on desktop machines. They did this through first a partner ship with IBM and then by being big enough that they just rolled along. Their office suite (MS Office) runs only on Windows (and sort of on Macs). Because they have an effective monopoly on the office side it has become a de-facto (if very bad) standard. They restrict trade by not opening up their formats for other companies, this means that other companies have to invest time and effort to reverse engineer the standards to make their product compatible. But MS can break this at any time when they introduce a new format.

Not only that, because they have an effective monopoly the can ship programs with the OS. These become widely used, not because they are good, but because they are right there. MS IE has about 90% of the browser market I think, this allows MS to effectively set standards for the web 'cause web developers ignore the other 10% of the market. Do you know about the browser wars? IE won. But the real reason to get IE the standard was so that Netscape wouldn't be able to sell their server packages.

And because Windoze is so prevalent MS can force hardware companies to ship only Windoze machines. If the hardware companies try and ship other OSes, MS gets angry and revokes the contract. The hardware company can't sell many computers 'cause most people know and are used to Windoze, and don't want another OS.

And what is Ironic is that a Distro of Linux is being shipped with $US300 computers by another effective monopoly (Wal-Mart).


So even thought there are superior products on the market, people don't use or buy them 'cause they are used to MS and aren't techie enough to learn (in fact most people don't want to change anything they do).


The really sad fact being that they are using inferior products as a result :(

Just click the link to linux in my sig... damnit it's free!

[Shredder]

You do not own the music...the music is still owned by the artist. What you purchase when you buy a CD is the right to listen to the content.

That sucks ass.

With intellectual property laws, all the reasons to idealize capitalism are defenestrated. The free market is supposed to be the most efficient way to meet people's demands and improve the conditions of life. Not only does that fail, but I am not even allowed to live up to the capacity of the modern productive forces!

Here, advances in technology have developed a system where music can be reproduced very cheaply because the labor of burning it is done by the consumer himself. But the bourgeois property relations are a fetter on these productive forces.

Now you are admitting to the true spirit of free trade. The idea that 'every trade is a completely fair mutual agreement' goes out the window along with the hope of capitalism meeting demands and improving conditions of life. In reality, the trade always benefits the person who is already richer. There is nothing fair about a capitalist selling you something and then still having any rights to it. Such a law is inches away from completely ruining free trade. Because if the seller has rights to whatever you do with the item you bought, let's say a hammer and nails, it is now impossible for anyone to become a capitalist. For if I become an entrepreneur and build a house with my hammer and nails, I cannot profit; the person who sold me the hammer and nails claims the rights!

"The music is still owned by the artist." But what is the music? An "pure essence" floating around in some invisible ether? I don't believe in that nonsense. I believe in material. The "music" is a series of vibrations. Carvings are made into a blank CD in such a way that another instrument (say, a cd player) can transform that data into vibrations. Had the artist not wanted someone else to own the music, he didn't have to put it onto a CD and sell it to me.

This isn't about someone "walking into your house and robbing you blind." A better metaphor would be someone walking into your house and then going back to his house an rearranging his furniture the way yours is. He has robbed you of nothing. He made a copy of sense data, and in doing so did not in any way change your copy. When I buy a CD, the artist does not suddenly forget the chords or lyrics to the songs on it.

The fair trade that takes place when I buy a CD has nothing to do with disembodied "ideas". It has to do with material. When I buy something, I must be able to do whatever I want with it, including re-sell it. Otherwise, capitalism doesn't work.

[Nyder]

Wtf are you talking about? People are allowed to use other people's works as 'inspiration' or to influence their work as long as it is not a blatant rip-off. For example I can't make a movie called 'Star Wars' with characters called Darth Vader and Han Solo because that would amount to pure intellectual property theft.

There is no law saying you are not allowed to borrow certain ideas - such as 'The Matrix' drew heavily on the works of William Gibson and various anime films.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from re-selling a CD you brought as long as you don't mass produce it and market it like you own the rights to it. It's protecting the integrity of the artist and their ownership over their ideas.

No wonder there is such little creative output from communist-inspired nations.

[DaCuBaN]

MS IE has about 90% of the browser market I think, this allows MS to effectively set standards for the web 'cause web developers ignore the other 10% of the market

96% last time I checked :lol: :rolleyes:

The other 4% is made up of the few Mozilla based browsers (lin/win) out there, and Opera (Macintosh).

What I find laughable is that although MS have indeed set the standard, it's amazingly inferior. Take Cascading style sheets. We are on CSS3 std, whereas IE doesn't even fully support CSS1. That puts IE a good four years behind it's competition.

If this isn't monopolisation, and a sound argument for anti-trust laws, I don't know what is.

[Solzhenitsyn]

Actually, all form of massive economic centralization are deleterious be they from governmental or corporate quarters. The unique threat that monopolies and monopsonies represent is something that pure laissez-faire theorists won't really say much about because they have no way of controlling it short of abolishing the idea of the corporation as a seperate legal entity (which is an equally unacceptable alternative to them for rather obvious reasons).

As far as Linux goes, it's product superiority is an illusion concocted by it's advocates. Despite what you read in back alley internet forums the truth of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of people are completely satisfied with MS products. It's short learning curve is one of Windows major benefits. Linux however good it may or may not be is useless to a vast majority of users simply because they have neither the time nor the inclination to learn how to use Unix based OS's.

One thing that is absolutely killing Linux is lack of quality software. Linux will never be a threat to Windows because despite gradual improvements, the nebulous groups of Linux developers simply can produce neither the quality nor quanity of software readily available for XP markets. Rather they seem satisfied making shoddy one-offs of MS Office and MS style GUIs. It doesn't help that the developers insist on using the archiac GCC and deride any modern development environment for Linux like Borland's superb Delphi port called Kylix. For Linux to be more than a cheap email server OS, it needs professional software developers.

[Shredder]

For example I can't make a movie called 'Star Wars' with characters called Darth Vader and Han Solo because that would amount to pure intellectual property theft.

Why not?

If there are people willing to pay for such a rip-off product, you should allow it.

But that's not what I'm talking about anyway, you're intentionally changing the topic. I'm talking about that if we, the people, can use the internet to distribute Star Wars more cheaply than the DVD distributers, we should be able to. Anything less is contrary to the ideals of laissez-faire capitalism. By declaring file-sharing to be stealing, you put a fetter on the productive forces. Marxist ABC: if the productive forces have outgrown the property relations, the latter has to go.

[Vìcmælon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2004, 05:46 AM
Here's something I've always wondered.

Why are anti-trust laws "bad"?
'The State is distinguished from all other institutions in society in two ways: (1) it and it alone can interfere by the use of violence with actual or potential market exchanges of other people; and (2) it and it alone obtains its revenues by a compulsory levy, backed by violence. No other individual or group can legally act in these ways. Now what happens when the State, or a criminal, uses violence to interfere with exchanges on the market? Suppose that the government prohibits A and B from making an exchange they are willing to make. It is clear that the utilities of both A and B have been lowered, for they are prevented by threat of violence from making an exchange that they otherwise would have made. On the other hand, there has been a gain in utility (or at least an anticipated gain) for the government officials imposing this restriction, otherwise they would not have done so. As economists, we can therefore say nothing about social utility in this case, since some individuals have demonstrably gained and some demonstrably lost in utility from the governmental action.

The same conclusion follows in those cases where the government forces C and D to make an exchange which they otherwise would not have made. Once again, the utilities of the government officials gain. And at least one of the two participants (C or D) lose in utility, because at least one would not have wanted to make the exchange in the absence of governmental coercion. Again, economics can say nothing about social utility in this case.

We conclude therefore that no government interference with exchanges can ever increase social utility. ' - Rothbard.

Anti-trust laws fall under the first category.

The only barrier to free trade is coercion - usually government. I haven't heard of Microsoft initiating force against its competitors. The 'worst' they have been charged with IIRC is including a browser with its OS. No-one is forced to buy the product, there are many other OSs to choose from, many of which are free. So as Microsoft are not coercing anyone into doing business with them; I fail to see how they are "restricting" free trade.


Where and how do you draw the line between social and economic issues

There is none. Either has freedom of self-determination or they are being coerced.


I have a question for Laizeiziz-fair capitalists.

What do you think about intellectual property laws?

Excellent question. Short answer; intellectual property is not property. Something cannot be property if it is not scarce. Ideas are not scarce. You could have an idea and I could have the same idea subsequently without diminishing your utility or possesion of the idea. People come up with the same ideas independently all the time - for one person to claim the idea is her/his property is thus absurd. When you purchase a CD, as in your example, you own the physical plastic disc, with its unique grooves and whatever which allow it to replicate certain sounds. You do not "own" the sounds, and neither does the artist. Intellectual property rights are immoral, and anathema to True Capitalists™ *.



*in my entirely subjective biased opinion. :D

Live Free,

Vic

[apathy maybe]

No capitalist has yet responded to my question on Microsoft.

On "intellectual property", from the draft <http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25528> article


As well Free Software (and the entire copyleft phenomenon) circumnavigates the traditional government-granted monopoly on an idea for a period of time (copyright). One of the original reasons for copyright was the supposed encouragement of science and the arts. However, as shown with Free Software, if everyone can build on the work others have released science advances faster (advances in software are happening faster than it would have otherwise) and work does not have to be duplicated (as happened with the two teams sequencing the human genome).

While traditional economics is based on the idea of scarcity, in this digital world this idea is out of date. Any writing, music, movie or software can be copied effectively an unlimited amount of times. While the the concept of copyright still holds true (though many wish it didn&#39;t), it is hard to enforce in many cases. This copyright enables a creator of a digital form to create an &#39;artificial scarcity&#39;, and provides legal protection to the creator. This concept of &#39;artificial scarcity&#39; is defended by claiming that hard work went into develop the work and that this needs to be rewarded.

Basicly if you&#39;re laissez-faire capitalist you should be opposed to the idea of "intellectual property" &#39;cause it is a government granted monopoly. And this restricts trade.

[Vìcmælon]

I think you&#39;ll find I did...