Oops, the final sentence was screwed up in the copy of this message I
sent. Here's a corrected version.
<<< Starchild >>>
This was a message I wrote a while ago and seem never to have sent.
Sorry for the delay.Rob,
I never mentioned the Microsoft/Sun matter, and in fact I took the
trouble to change the Subject line to reflect the fact that we'd veered
off into a new topic. As far as I'm concerned, we were already talking
in general terms about how much government protection inventors ought
to have.Nor do I recall proposing that government level the playing field
whenever a monopoly arises naturally; I believe I expressed openness to
the idea of government intervention to preserve competitive markets,
which is quite different from advocating that this *should* happen in
every case.It's clear from hindsight that temporary monopolies in cars,
electricity, etc., turned out to be just that — temporary — so that
consumers today are not suffering from unbridled monopolies, though I'm
not sure that government action played no role in this generally
favorable outcome. I do think your assumption that government
restrictions on monopolies would
have kept mass produced cars, photography equipment, etc., from ever
appearing is a bit of a stretch.Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>Unless we've veered off onto the topic of copyright and patent law, I
thought
we were talking about McNealy's "raging libertarian" comment. In that
case,
Microsoft's dominance is 100% market-determined, with no "ownership"
whatsoever causing the monopoly. On the contrary, it's McNealy's Sun
Microsystems that is claiming "ownership" of java technology, thereby
blocking
Microsoft from adding its own extensions.We can talk about copyright and patent law elsewhere if you like, but
I'm just
saying that the mere fact that Microsoft has a near monopoly is not
justification for government interference. What you proposed a couple
of
emails ago, which is government leveling the playing field whenever a
monopoly
arises naturally, would take the incentive out of productive
innovation.
That's what would cause technological process to halt. If monopolies
had been
considered as evil back in the 19th and 20th centuries as they are now
in the
21st, we would never have seen mass produced cars, consumer
photography
equipment, electric everything, or the miniaturization of computers.If you still want my opinion on copyright and patent law, let me know.
We can
start another thread.-- Rob Power
http://www.robpower.comStarchild said:
Rob,
I'm still unclear as to whether you believe inventors of new
technological processes or products should have sole and complete
(meaning transferable) ownership of those innovations forever. You
pointedly did *not* say that we would be better off if the heirs of
Edison, Bell, and Kodak still had monopolies on electricity,
telephones, and photography.I'm not sure which "proposed system" of mine you're referring to
that
would allegedly have us still using horse drawn-wagons and such, as
my
last message pretty explicitly refrained from advocating a
free-for-all
on new technology and I made no other specific proposal.Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>I'm not talking about any "policy". I'm talking about an absence of
"policy".
You were the one advocating for market controls to artificially
create or
bolster competition. I'm just saying that a monopoly isn't a bad
thing if
someone innovates to create that monopoly. Bell had a monopoly on
phones for
most of his life. Edison had a monopoly on most things electric.
Ford had a
monopoly on cars for the masses. Kodak had a monopoly on consumer
photography. Until very recently, Intel had a monopoly on consumer
computer
chips. Each of these monopolies or near-monopolies lasted for
decades, and I
think we consumers weren't harmed.My point is that a market-determined monopoly is not so evil that we
must have
government come in and "level the playing field" for the sheer sake
of
preventing monopolies. If not for each of these innovative people
or
companies having a huge profit motive due to their near monopoly
status, it's
highly unlikely that most of them would have put so much effort into
their
innovations.Under your proposed system, there might be a "more level playing
field", but
we'd all still be playing with horse-drawn wagons, candles, oil
paintings,
telegraphs, and an abacus.
--
Rob Power
http://www.robpower.comStarchild said:
Rob,
Is your position that the inventer of a technological process or
revolutionary new product should have sole and complete ownership
of
that process or product forever?Think what this would mean had such a policy been in effect for a
significant length of time. The heirs of the people who invented
photography, computer chips, the telephone, the internal combustion
engine, and all kinds of other things that are used daily by
virtually
everyone in developed countries (or the people who bought them out)
would be making all kinds of money, and it would be a huge drain on
the
resources of everyone else in society.Taking your hypothetical example of a perpetual motor, he or she
would
not be forced to "give it away," strictly speaking, even with no
government protection of intellectual property rights for the
inventor.
Others would simply be free to copy the design and make their own
motors. The cachet of being first and the desire of people like
yourself (and possibly me) to properly compensate invention would
still
give the original inventor's motors a natural advantage in the
market,
and consequently some not insignificant financial renumeration.Going to the other extreme would tend to hamstring the entire
society
by making the new technology only just barely enough of a better
value
than existing energy sources to get people to switch (thereby
maximizing profits for the inventor or the people who bought
him/her
out), instead of realizing a major economic leap for the entire
planet
that would come with the availability of a radically cheaper energy
source.I'm not sure that no legal protection whatsoever for intellectual
property is a good idea (though that would of course be the case
under
anarchy), but that approach appeals to me more than its opposite.Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>Okay, let's forget Einstein. Let's pretend there was this
perpetual
motor
that worked by drawing static electricity out of the atmosphere,
and
that
motor made fossil fuels and nuclear fission obsolete...Do you honestly think the inventor of that motor would give it
away
"for love
of knowledge and peer recognition"? Come on. Sometimes it's
better
to have a
single breakthrough product that's fairly well monopolized in a
free
market
than it is to have a government-regulated market where such
innovation
has
absolutely no incentive.As for natural barriers to entry, let's get back on the topic of
software.
Just because I can personally, by myself, write a word processing
program that
competes with Word does not mean that there's no naturally high
barrier to
entry. The naturally high barrier is that millions of people use
Word, and
nobody uses my software, and people tend to only use software that
writes
files in formats that are easily transferred and read by others.
Compatibility vs proprietary file formats is the naturally high
barrier in
software.It's funny. Sun is notorious for being proprietary. Ever tried
hooking up a
Sun Sparc keyboard to a PC or a Mac? When they claim that
Microsoft
is too
proprietary, and that's a barrier to entry, it sounds a bit
hypocritical to
all the hardware manufacturers who can make one keyboard that
works
on
all
Wintel machines, but they have to make a different keyboard for
Sun,
Mac,
etc., which all use proprietary connections.Face it. McNealy's own company doesn't practice what he preaches,
and
he's
blatantly using the force of government to win advantage over
competitors in a
market where he's simply been competitively out-maneuvered.
Government
controls only hurt consumers, and there's nothing ragingly
libertarian
about
them.--
Rob Power
http://www.robpower.comStarchild said:
Michael,
In what way does Einstein's theory of relativity constitute a
product
in a market? Should other scientists have to pay him when
referencing
or using his theory in their work? That would be a disaster for
scientific progress. Right now most scientists work primarily for
love
of knowledge and peer recognition, not money. So requiring them
to
pay
all kinds of royalties to previous innovators in order to be able
to
effectively push the frontiers of knowledge would add little
incentive,
but would clearly have a major inhibiting effect on progress.And surely you can't be suggesting we should all pay royalties
to
him
if we adopt the belief that the universe works the way he
described
it?
I'm not sure I follow your example.Regarding the costs of entering a market, I recognize that for
complex
and expensive products like airplanes the barriers will naturally
be
fairly high, and I wasn't talking about these "natural" costs.
What
I
meant to suggest is that in an ideal market, barriers to entry
would
be
no higher than required by the nature of the products or services
to
be
offered.Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>Starchild,
I disagree with:
• Wide variety of consumer choice
• Highly competitive (not dominated by any single company or
small
group of companies)If one genius, e.g., an Einstein, devises a terrific idea,
e.g., E=mc2, far ahead of its time, which people universally
embrace, this is great. The absence of choice and competition
is no problem in such a case.I also disagree with:
• Low barriers to entryIf you wish to build an airplane, for example, and compete
with Boeing, the start-up costs would be high even in a free
market.Best, Michael
From: "Starchild" <sfdreamer@earthlink.net>
To: <lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 12:23 AM
Subject: [lpsf-discuss] Creating ideal market conditions (was
"Raging
Libertarian")It seems to me that an ideal market would be one with the
following
characteristics:• No government interference
• Wide variety of consumer choice
• Low barriers to entry
• Highly competitive (not dominated by any single company or
small
group of companies)
• Favorable conditions for innovation, creativity, and
technological
progressIn the computer industry, a lot of the issues that come up, and
that
determine which companies prosper and how, are going to be
issues
of
intellectual property. Now given that intellectual property is
such a
grey area of libertarian philosophy to begin with (should
government
enforce patents? should they eventually expire? etc.), might it
be
worth tolerating a little government interference if that
interference
was designed to enhance the other four characteristics noted
above?Your devil's advocate,
<<< Starchild >>>Don't get me wrong. I support the free market. All
I was saying
is that I blacklist that company in my book, and I
have every right
to do so.... unless someone feels this is an
inappropriate topic
for this list. I suppose it is. Sorry.I did not mean to imply that it was wrong to
personally not choose MS or Linux or that your
comments here were inappropriate.My commentary was meant to address the fact that
Microsoft's aggressive business tactics should not be
compared on the same level as those that McNealy has
sunken to in wrongly leveraging government. That is
much, much worse in my opinion. And it's not like Sun
is lily white on the business tactics either. They
have been sued for patent/tm violations, etc. as well.BTW - I'm looking for any supporting material on a
comparison between competitive markets vs. free
markets, if you know of any. Very subtle difference
between the two...I've found many neo-libs to say they
support the free-market(like McNealy) but what they
really want is 'a level playing field' on their own
terms - i.e. no domination. Doesn't sound free to me.
ideas on this?__________________________________
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