Re: Reply to Carl L

[I wrote:]
>>I own the fruits of my labor, and I claim the right to trade
>>peacefully with others, without interference. Anything else is
>>theft and coercion, no matter what pretty language one might dress
>>it up in. If, by chance, I should happen to invent something, say
>>a small box that emits beautiful music, I would claim the right to
>>market that device to anyone, anywhere in the world, at a price
>>that I would set (subject, of course, to the fact that if I set the
>>price too high, my sales will suffer).
<snip>
>>JdL

[John S:]
>That is all very reasonable. Suppose however, that you were to be
>wildly successful with your music box; so successful that you had a
>virtual monopoly. Would it be ethical to use your monopoly power to
>crush all competition? It can be done, you know.

A fair question, and I'll meet it head-on: it would not be nice, but
I would not make it illegal. For example, I might say to someone,
"You can manufacture my wildly popular product, and make lots of money,
but only if you promise not to have any dealings with Upstart
Industries." I'm being a jerk: rather than allowing UI to compete
with me head-to-head, I use my clout to suppress their efforts. Or
I undercut their price till they fold, then up mine again. Etc.
Nasty stuff, I agree.

And so what? So we'll have the government "fix" things? To my view,
this is ALWAYS worse. It comes down to the basic fact that governments
only operate by coercion, never by voluntary agreements (and this is
true whether or not the government is a democracy, described by one wag
as "Two foxes and a sheep voting on who's for dinner.").

The face of government is force. Consider the dying cancer patients
in Santa Cruz CA whose marijuana co-op was raided by federal thugs.
No number of ruthless capitalists, with all the techniques at their
disposal, can approach such evil.

If I make a mint off my music box and play dirty tricks on would-be
competitors, eventually the bad publicity, combined with new innovations
I have not considered, will work against me, and my mighty monopoly
will fall. In the mean time, have I done considerable damage? Quite
possibly. But this is nothing compared to the damage done by coercive
governments. And the world is still enriched by my efforts, as defined
by the people who have voluntarily traded with me for them (every
voluntary trade by definition enriches both parties, as defined by
the parties themselves, or else the trade does not take place).

JdL

the government at this point is the police arm of corporate feudalism and it is in thier
interest they act. If you object to government then you might object to who is pulling the
strings.
With the airwaves, the monopoly belongs to the public and companies "rent" the
airspace for almost nothing. We being the owners can demand to rent it how we please in as
many subdivisions as possible. i say break all the big radio companies up, as they
continue to attempt to jam smaller stations. We should demand a diversity that reflects
our taste as a nation, not one that refect corporate garbage they want to sell us. and BTW
you can include NPR in it's tactics to attempt to get stations license revolved who won't
carry their dribble.

"John A. deLaubenfels" wrote:

> [I wrote:]
> >>I own the fruits of my labor, and I claim the right to trade
> >>peacefully with others, without interference. Anything else is
> >>theft and coercion, no matter what pretty language one might dress
> >>it up in. If, by chance, I should happen to invent something, say
> >>a small box that emits beautiful music, I would claim the right to
> >>market that device to anyone, anywhere in the world, at a price
> >>that I would set (subject, of course, to the fact that if I set the
> >>price too high, my sales will suffer).
> <snip>
> >>JdL
>
> [John S:]
> >That is all very reasonable. Suppose however, that you were to be
> >wildly successful with your music box; so successful that you had a
> >virtual monopoly. Would it be ethical to use your monopoly power to
> >crush all competition? It can be done, you know.
>
> A fair question, and I'll meet it head-on: it would not be nice, but
> I would not make it illegal. For example, I might say to someone,
> "You can manufacture my wildly popular product, and make lots of money,
> but only if you promise not to have any dealings with Upstart
> Industries." I'm being a jerk: rather than allowing UI to compete
> with me head-to-head, I use my clout to suppress their efforts. Or
> I undercut their price till they fold, then up mine again. Etc.
> Nasty stuff, I agree.
>
> And so what? So we'll have the government "fix" things? To my view,
> this is ALWAYS worse. It comes down to the basic fact that governments
> only operate by coercion, never by voluntary agreements (and this is
> true whether or not the government is a democracy, described by one wag
> as "Two foxes and a sheep voting on who's for dinner.").
>
> The face of government is force. Consider the dying cancer patients
> in Santa Cruz CA whose marijuana co-op was raided by federal thugs.
> No number of ruthless capitalists, with all the techniques at their
> disposal, can approach such evil.
>
> If I make a mint off my music box and play dirty tricks on would-be
> competitors, eventually the bad publicity, combined with new innovations
> I have not considered, will work against me, and my mighty monopoly
> will fall. In the mean time, have I done considerable damage? Quite
> possibly. But this is nothing compared to the damage done by coercive
> governments. And the world is still enriched by my efforts, as defined
> by the people who have voluntarily traded with me for them (every
> voluntary trade by definition enriches both parties, as defined by
> the parties themselves, or else the trade does not take place).
>
> JdL
>
>

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "John A. deLaubenfels" <jdl@a...>
wrote:
<snip>
> If I make a mint off my music box and play dirty tricks on would-be
> competitors, eventually the bad publicity, combined with new
innovations
> I have not considered, will work against me, and my mighty monopoly
> will fall. In the mean time, have I done considerable damage?
Quite
> possibly. But this is nothing compared to the damage done by
coercive
> governments. And the world is still enriched by my efforts, as
defined
> by the people who have voluntarily traded with me for them (every
> voluntary trade by definition enriches both parties, as defined by
> the parties themselves, or else the trade does not take place).
>
> JdL

Bad publicity will not prevent people from buying the only product
available. Further, you could stifle any innovation if you were large
enough. In fact, your power could rival the government's should you
become big enough, and your tactics could become just as nasty.

Let me offer you a scenario in a different setting, but with the same
basic structure. Suppose you ran afoul of a very rich, very vindictive
man. He could buy the company you work for and have you fired. He
could have you tracked from job to job, state to state, doing the same
thing each time you got a job. If you rented, he could have you kicked
out. If you owned your own home, he could buy up all the property
around you and rent to criminals. He could pay to have someone follow
you whereever you go and sour every deal, every meeting, every
personal encounter you had.

Would you say the government has no right to make laws regulating such
behavior?

John Starrett

JdL:
>Nasty stuff, I agree.
>
>And so what? So we'll have the government "fix" things? To my
>view, this is ALWAYS worse.

I don't know if it's ALWAYS worse, but I think a monopoly-killing
government is a bad idea. That's why I'm proposing clever modeling.

And what is clever modeling? It's running simulations and finding
out what rules and initial conditions lead to the most efficient
outcomes. We probably have to wait only 5-10 years before the
fastest supercomputers can brute-force a meaningful model.

Then you take politics out of economics completely. A computer
(or lots of local computers) oversee(s) all the variables in the
economy. All the ones the model says they should oversee. Maybe
the hard anarcho-capitalists will be vindicated, and the answer
is no manipulation of anything.

As for the 'dangers' of computers running the show, it's possible
to make such a setup far safer from corruption than any gov'mint.
In fact, computers are the most reliable technology humans have,
and they should be running things as soon as possible.

Incidentally, I think the government monopoly on currency
production, though probably necessary in the early days of the
union, is completely obsolete and probably the most deleterious
thing our government has its hands in. With clever modeling,
there might be all kinds of special-purpose currencies that get
created and wiped out in different places at particular times.

>It comes down to the basic fact that governments only operate by
>coercion, never by voluntary agreements

The free market is not free of coercion. Coercion is a consequent
of human psychology. Governments must provide useful services
otherwise they couldn't survive! Government is not above Nature!

>The face of government is force. Consider the dying cancer
>patients in Santa Cruz CA whose marijuana co-op was raided by
>federal thugs.

Yeah, that sucked. Unfortunately, people have the right to both
recreational and medical use of Cannabis sativa, but are pursuing
the latter under the guise of the former. The Feds will bust it
all as a result (the club I'm in is marked for death).

>No number of ruthless capitalists, with all the techniques at
>their disposal, can approach such evil.

Don't be so sure.

My father was a very high-ranking scientist at at two of the
largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. They were both
tremendous forces for good in the world, I think, but still
capable of some truly evil things.

I've seen what oil companies are doing in Ecuador. Makes the
Santa Cruz bust look tame.

The first international corporations ravaged the world.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...>
wrote:

> the government at this point is the police arm of corporate
>feudalism and it is in thier
> interest they act.

too true!

> With the airwaves, the monopoly belongs to the public and
companies "rent" the
> airspace for almost nothing. We being the owners can demand to rent
it how we please in as
> many subdivisions as possible. i say break all the big radio
companies up, as they
> continue to attempt to jam smaller stations.

thanks kraig for restating this in your own words, which hopefully
will inspire a bit more thought on the part of those who know little
about the subject.

> We should demand a diversity that reflects
> our taste as a nation, not one that refect corporate garbage they
>want to sell us.

amen! this doesn't preclude capitalism in any way, just the
monopolistic situation which, as any student of capitalism knows,
turns all the social advantages of capitalism into disadvantages. and
no, it won't just "go away" due to unpopularity -- few people have
even *heard* of clear channel or know that any such concentrated
interest is controlling their airwaves.