Slashdot Mirror
Reclaiming the Commons
NeuroManson writes "What do fresh air, medicine, culture, copyright, and government have in common? Perhaps not exactly what you think. Up until recently, I considered the term "commons" as an archaic term from Victorian or Elizabethan times. However, apparently it still exists both as a concept and a philosophy. Despite its almost ancient connotations, it's an eye opener regarding how concepts centuries old hold true even today, but much like freedom, require eternal vigilance to protect, and covers everything from the air you breath through the GNU, HDTV, and copyright issues. Read on." Bollier's article and the responses are superb intellectual reading. If you don't have time today, bookmark it, come back later.
"Perhaps not exactly what you think"?
What the hell does that mean?
Considered harmful.
My God man, there are SOME things that just have NO place here on Slashdot!
I've always been sceptical of people defining the world as a "hypertrophic market that colonizes untouched natural resources and public life while eroding our democratic commonwealth".
Do I really sound smarter if I use big words that poorly describe the idea I'm trying to convey?
Maybe the author is being didactic...
"[...]while eroding our democratic commonwealth."
Well right now it's more like an aristocracy, with corporations being the aristocrats.
What seems intellectual today, may seem quite silly tomorrow.. Aw - we are talking about fundamentals here.
"What do fresh air, medicine, culture, copyright, and government have in common?"
I don't know, but I bet it leads to Kevin Bacon.
How's my typing? Call 1-800-eta-shut
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That is the weirdest thing I've ever read. Here I was, hoping for some Cow Porn, and it's terrible crap.
Truly disappointing.
BTW, since when did Slashdot start openly shilling for Communism?
Click Go to try your address again.
Or, correct the spelling of your address above and click Go.
Go to MSN Search to see complete results.
Help
See technical details.
About Results Mp> Powered byMSN Search©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.Terms of UseTRUSTe Approved Privacy Statement
oh but admit you liked it. deep down inside, you yearn for more don't you? well i could give it all to you. all you ever wanted. just say it. say the magic word, baby. oh yea give it to me
oooh!!
When discussing democratic rights why not focus on human rights violations like dictators, torture, lack of independent lawsystems etc.
No, you warzing mp3 without paying the author who worked hard is not in any way the same thing.
I think it's quite distasteful to warez mp3s and come with some made-up pathetic association with human rights violations.
Lending a CD to a friend is fair use, "sharing" it with two million "friends" are not.
Bollier also has an excellent book entitled 'Silent Theft', which takes the theme of the article and expands upon it. I highly recommend it.
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
"What do fresh air, medicine, culture, copyright, and government have in common?"
.. bleh. inventing new atmosphere friendly thingamebobs
.. who cares ?
It ALL costs us money ?
trying to keep the air fresh, costs us money on, cleaning up the ozone and all that
Blah blah
don't you mean: say the magic word, baby. moo yea give it to me MOOOO!!
Hardin discusses what happens when everyone's individual interests are optimized by exploiting a common -- until the common is destroyed. It's a standard pattern of human behavior, IMHO, and is useful in analyzing any situation involving something held in common. I use it for software architecture ideas, for example.
As usual with Hardin, he brings in diverse topics like game theory, economics, politics, etc.
oh yes honey
MOO baby MOO!!!
ooff!!
oh yea
come give me some transgendered cow action!
It makes me weep for my country and its exploitation by huge, multinational corporations with no cultural or national alligence, save to mammon. How many multi-million dollar castles does a CEO need? How many retirement incomes and payroll expenses does it take?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
We currently lack a vocabulary for identifying a wide range of abuses that harm public assets and social ecology.
How are we to understand that we are controlled, when we embrace resident over Citizen; person over man; vehicle over car, democracy over republic; firearm over gun; real estate over land? How does one defend his God-given liberties, when he can only represent himself with Constitutional rights?
The last one to discover water would be the fish.
Wow- it never occurred to me before: government hasn't done a good job at allocating resources!!!! The article is stupid. It takes this no-brainer observation and tries to imply that individuals should not be given true property rights. Experience shows that commons are not efficient. Unfortunately, experience also shows that the state is not good at pricing/allocating property rights, but THIS is what we should work at improving, not trying to find some new, magical solution.
In the paragraph right after discussing how the global gnu/linux community is part of the commons, there's this little gem:
What unites these highly disparate commons--from natural resources to public domain to gift economies--is their legal and moral ownership by the American people.
hrmmm.. the american people eh? because i thought that it really belonged "morally and legally" to the whole of the earths populace.
Us silly Americans.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
As reported earlier today on Slashdot, the much-loved Goatse.cx has allowed their domain name registration to lapse. Their site may be gone, but their legacy will live on.
The commons he describes are as much the commons of the american people as that of the european, nigerian or eskimoo though.
I admit I'm nitpicking a bit, but these things he decribes (go read the article) are the commons of mankind, not just of those so-called "industrialized" countries...
Just my 0.2c
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
I just looked at this 'rebuttal'. Essentially, Palmer's quibble is that The American People are equated with various non-profit, mutual groups such as community garden managers and Alcoholics Anonymous, and that commons if anything is really a spectrum from individual benevolent ownership (e.g. Linux trademark) to global sharing (copyright of Alice in Wonderland).
So what? The point of the original article is that previously shared and non-profit assets are being privatized and protected. Any rebuttal must show how encroachment isn't happening to be considered conclusive, or even relevant.
Oh if Slashdot were the only "problem". (Actually Slashdot has brought the great technical advantage of moderation -- something needed when the Internet gates were opened to the plebes in the mid-90's. But that's not to say UseNet couldn't have added a moderation protocol.) Now, everyone has a personal blog (even me, now, sad to say). Even those that allow others' comments, such as mine, don't attract them because of lower viewership/memberhip and because there is less assurance to potential posters that the site will be up the next day.
So essentially, we have a bunch of private little independent monologues going on, plus some dialog on a few big private sites like Slashdot and kuro5hin, but no public dialog in an Internet Commons like UseNet.
(Why do I blog? Because no one is on UseNet, because I don't want a private company copyrighting what I write, and because big sites reasonably don't want to post every last thing I want to post.)
> Bollier apparently wishes to join the likes of Stalin, Lenin, and Pol Pot who feel they must "liberate"
> private property from the capitalist pigs.
I read the article; you are putting words in his mouth.
Making property or land publicly owned is an old, well-documented legal idea. The Roman jurist Gaius describes it in his _Institutes_: ``Public things are regard as belonging to no individual, but as being the property of the whole world [ipsius enim universitatis esse creduntur]." As a result, Gaius argued that these public properties were not subject to the law of nations, but of an older, natural or common law -- ``communis onmium hominum jus" -- that is derived from custom, & not from legislation.
Last I checked, neither Gaius nor the hundreds of Civil Law jurists whose work derives from him were communists. Which is not surprising in that he lived some 1500 years before Karl Marx was born. And if he were, that would mean that the law of much of Europe & the rest of the world -- which is derived from Civil Law, as distinguished from Canon or Church, & from Common or Anglo-American -- follows Communist law.
Only a parochial US citizen would argue that much of the world follows a ``Communist" law. The same kind of person who instinctively equates communist with mass murderer, although there have been far more mass murderers who did not profess communism than did so.
In short, one can easily argue for the existence of a commons if the existence of intellectual property is assumed. And the concept of intellectual property is something that was invented only in the last few decades.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
... and covers everything from the air you breath through the GNU,...
I imagine that not only would it be difficult to breathe air through a gnu, it would also be rather distasteful. But I could be wrong!
The enemies of Democracy are
If anything, this article has brought out the depths of /. readers.
1.) "Read Tom G. Palmer's response" - I did, and his comments on the subject are as opinionated as Mr. Bollier's, just from a different point of view.
2.) "Who cares?" - When a corporation starts charging you for breathing air, you might pay more attention.
3.) "I got bored..." - Seeing as your founding fathers started from England and English law, I think you will find it applies. Besides, I live in Canada (an independent nation since 1867) and we still refer to English Common Law. BTW, we are a democracy. With elections that work... (Sorry, I had to...)
Just my 2c worth, or 1.2 US...
[MSN Search] can't find "www.goatse.cx".
Perhaps they can't, but I can.
In ten years, am I going to go to the store and pick up six-pack bottles of Perri-Air?
This sig no verb.
Wake up and smell the coffee before you end up working for a company that requires you to live in a company owned house and buy food from a company owned store and send your children to company schools. Oh,you will be kept in line by company 'police'. Does this sound familiar? It should. It described coal towns in West Virgina at the turn of the last century. The 'towns' were fenced in to keep the 'workers' from leaving. They couldn't leave because they owned the company money. The wages they paid weren't enough to cover rent, food, clothing and education supplied by the company. If you can't equate this with slavery your brain is in need of repair.
Re-read the article again but first take of those glasses Dr. Knee-Jerk sold you. Don't confuse an open mind with an empty one.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
The British Colonies established a Unanimous Declaration of Independance of July 4, 1776. This established that all men are created equal; meaning all the current residents of the 13 British Colonies, or States if you will, were sovereigns: each and every person was self-governed and equal to the king and queen of Britain. Hahaha, and they were only Sovereigns until the end of their lifetimes. Nobody was a Sovereign afterwards and we are still under British law and the United States corporation is expressing an essential Democracy and is a quissling agent of Britain. You see, the United States Corporation is a stock holder and everything is for sale. The residents of the United States are currently owned by the highest stock-holder/investor: Britain. It's been like this for oover 200 years. The white man never sold out the United States to other countries. The rumor has it that the Jews came into power and sold out all the "stock", but haven't found such supporting evidence in my own time and have much respect for the Jews. But to hell with respect for the Jews. Everyone accused of a crime is guilty and arrested until proven innocent. I should be entreating those Orthodox/Unorthodox Jews as the British do to me, but that would not be Christian conduct. Well back to the talk about Sovereignty. In Britain, the King is the only Sovereign. The king has two identities: body politic and public capacity: the King and the Crown. Sovereigns are the same: John Doe and JOHN DOE is completly different. Live and learn...we are sovereigns, but realistically due to adhesion contracts from your native-born State (British Colony) in the form of your Social Security Trust and the attempts of the Iternal Revenue Service. John Doe is your living breathing self, and JOHN DOE is a Reversionary Beneficiary Grantor Cestui Est Que Trust who's beneficiary is John Doe and Trustee and Trustors are the Bank, the State where the Trust was created(where your're born), and United States corporation, and the Federal (national) government
CITIZEN #1: Please, Mr. Capitalist, for a profit of $1, will you feed, clothe, and care for this child?
CAPITALIST: Of course! I will do this for a mere profit of one dollar, for private enterprise is happy to take on these public burdens if there is even the slightest profit!
CITIZEN #1: Thank you, Mr. Capitalist. I knew we could come to some sort of an arrangement.
So you see, private enterprise can be trusted to... oh. Wait... here comes another citizen...
CITIZEN #2: Here, Mr. Capitalist, for a profit of $2, will you kill, cook, and serve this child?
CAPITALIST: Hot damn! TWO dollars! Where's the salt?
Uh... oops. Nevermind.
stripShow - Where WordPress meets webcomics
From what I can see, as far as human nature goes, you can't have on without the other.
If someone feels ownership toward somthing they generally show care and respect for it. Translate this into issues like broadcast frequencies and public lands and you see the direct correlation.
99.9% of the people feel no sense of ownership toward the radio waves so they don't react when greedy goverment employees do as the please with them.
A majority of people never see all the wonderful national parks WE own. Worse yet, the government places so many regulations on what citizens can do with public land that we form a "Owned By The Government mentality". So when the government cuts deals with private corporations to rape the land, only a handful of activists bother to complain.
And I'm not just talking about Federal property here. Where I live in Newport News Virginia is under attack from greedy bastards on the city council to build a huge shopping mall adjacent to our only public water resiviour. Some residents balked so the project was slowed. Not stopped, but slowed.
Try stealing someone's car or taking their land and you'll see the flipside of this hypothesis.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I initially thought this story would be about defending the freedoms we've come to know and love. However, on deeper examination of comments such as this, it becomes clearer that the true motive is one of passive neo-anarchy. In a post-911 society, we cannot be swayed by such non-patriotic views. If this was the message they were conveying all along, they should be forthright about it, instead they masquerade as a "personal freedoms" advocate while subversively touting a nearly communistic viewpoint.
American: Another word I have a problem with.
The American continents extend from somewhere near the north pole all the way down past Tierra del Fuego. Brazilians are Americans. Columbians are Americans.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horrific picture/website Goatse.cx was found dead in his Christmas Island, Australia home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
That's fits a little too well...
http://welcome.to/foundation/
I got into an arguement with this guy on slashdot, who believed that air should not be free. That no "commons" should exsist, that everyone should have a price, even life itself.
Why did this arguement start? Because I said I believed its our responsiblity, to pay taxes to build schools to allow everyone the chance to be successful.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
--the CEO's ARE "government". Bush, cheney, shrillery--all of them. It's erroneous to think that this cluster fsck is anything other, the global corporations run the government and vice versa, this is called "fascism" and it SUCKS. Bribes are paid, called gifts, speaking fees, and campaign contributions. And we are supposed to believe there is no quid pro quo. And these nations we are warring on? Big coincidence that's where the bulk of the oil is-not!
You are a true American hero. You managed in 14 minutes or less absorb and distill a well thought out and researched complex 9,000-plus word (sic) piece on the imbalance between the interests of the few and the good of the public to "communism". Or did you only read the 500-word rebuttal. Have you thought about running for president? American business and the richest 2% need more people like you. People like you are scary, because you're allowed to vote.
Whoops! The above link is wrong. Try: http://come.to/foundation/ instead.
The "freedom of the individual" concept really starts having problems when you've got 6 billion individuals on this planet. In fact we have never had such a beast as "freedom of the individual". Humans are a social species, and we will never remotely come close to having "freedom of the individual".
Americans are operating in a fantasy that they still have individual freedoms unsurpassed and unparallelled in the rest of the world. People, let me give you a clue - that utopian vision maybe, perhaps obtained in the Ozarks in the 1700's, or in the Oregon Territory in 1880, but it sure as hell doesn't obtain now, especially not after the Second World War. In fact, what it really comes down to is, a typical American has 15,312 regulations ruling their behaviour, and the typical Western European has 18,448. So we filter the DC and end up focusing on the difference, which is small. Americans have surrendered every important liberty. We have income tax deducted at source. We need lawyers to buy a house or property, establish a business, or take a piss. We get to vote for candidates nominated by parties who have nothing whatsoever in common with the population, so whatever our government is it sure as hel isn't democratic. We have as many rules and financial obligations imposed upon us as were ever imposed upon any feudal peasant (if you think I am exaggerating, try not paying your next car insurance installment. On a more facetious note, if you are in a gated community or one controlled by a homeowners' association, try not complying with their 165 rules for a while, and see what happens).
There is no private property, and as Scott McNealy famously (and accurately) said, there is no privacy - get over it. If Americans want individual freedom, then maybe the useful discussion would be about the ways and means to get it back - don't labour under the naive illusion that you have any right now.
Wow, we've never heard that idea expressed in /. . How original! That copyrights and patents are stupid! Please, do more stories about this on slashdot! It will happen, but JEEZ EVERY OTHER STORY IS "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE".
This is a fact Everytime i mention we should have a fair society, where everyone has food, education, etc
They call it socialism and say they want government to be smaller, and no public schools
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
+1 Correctimundo
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
This is what I consider the commons.
Knowledge is no longer a common due to intellectual propery. Water is sold, Medicine is an extention of Intellectual propery, so its sold, Food is sold, we have surplus's of food sitting in government warehouses like milk and rice, which is enough to feed the whole population of the USA and the whole population of alot of other places, but instead it goes to waste literally because our laws make it so it must be sold.
Knowledge should be free.
Food should be free, not good food, but some food.
Water should be free, no one should be able to own a stream, you should be able to go get water for free.
Air should always be free, if we go to mars you should not pay for air.
The guy at slashdot I argued with said even air should have a price.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The "Commons" is nothing more than a nice word for collectivism, theft and fundamental nihlism.
Besides being incorrect in principal, the article is equally incorrect in its representation of the trend alleged towards increasing privatization.
Historically, such trends almost never evolve from one of collective/socialist society to that of individual liberty. No such reinforcing factors exist that make a society more and more respectful of the individual. In fact, history has substantial evidence that societal attrition consistently promotes greater degrees of liberty removal, creating more "collective" mechanisms (which are only props for a powerful elite to trick, fool and rob the masses). Furthermore, considerable secondary reinforcing effects exist to accelerate attrition, such as the demands by the masses for greater safety and well being when primary collectivist mechanisms begin to take their toll (a state Europe is deep into and the US is quickly following). Complete subjegation to tyranny follows within a matter of years.
Only revolution resets the collectivist attrition counter. A good revolution, complete with the public execution of such collectivist parasites (kings, emperors, czars, dictators, democrats, etc.) is the only mechanism that restores liberty. Then, society is safe from parasites for several generations (before the memory of such evil fades and the parasites feel safe to return).
So, the next time you feel sympathetic to such collectivist drivel, understand you have no right to speak for others property. Offer yours up if you feel so strongly about the commons. Hand your car keys to a stranger. Offer up your house to mentally instable homeless folk (redundant). Offer your spouse and children up for others to consume. Then perhaps will you understand the true nature of the commons.
(going down... blub blub...)
It just seems to me that once the people no longer control what they own, they no longer have the power to use those resources for bringing about necessary changes.
My example, taken from an economics class, is that of the grass growing in the town square. (How much more common can that get?) If 1 shepherd lets the flock graze on the land, maybe there will be no problems (other than a herd of sheep invading the town square). If too many shepherds do this, or if it becomes a habit, there won't be much grass left, and the people and the sheep will both have to go without.
The end result of companies buying up that which belongs to us all is that they will exploit it to their maximum profit potential, and then discard it. What you end up with is vast resources that were squandered and used up to benefit a very few, after having been seized from the many. That which used to be free is now owned. That which used to belong to everyone is now fenced off, divided, broken down, distilled, and resold at a profit. The end result of this, however, is a death of sorts. The excesses that allowed other things to spring up and evolve have been destroyed, crushed under the optimizing economics of profit-uber-alles. And so, that which was supposed to enrich everyone (the public at large wouldn't extract minerals from the ground) ends up making everyone poorer (the public at large isn't going to chop down every tree and then let the wood rot).
Just my thoughts. The maintenance of the commons provides a very important balance to the individual / corporate urges to conquer and claim. Balance is good.
If you take nothing else from the essay, read over the poem:
They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
--English folk poem, circa 1764
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
It empowers too many people and gives us all control in a democracy like way.
This is why Microsoft hates linux. This is why the MPAA and RIAA hates napster, because it takes the power from their corperation and gives the power to us, the users, and the musicians.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
How exactly are CEOs mugging people?
--
Benjamin Coates
And Linux is a socialist technology as is Napster.
They both prove the socialist model does work for information based technologies such as source code,math, music, things like that
Honestly all information should be open and free, medicine patents too.
However, some things cant be free anytime soon, like real labor, construction, these keep us from being able to go completely socialist.
We should however adapt capitalism.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
An idiot writes:
Well, obviously, part of the commons is Linux, and this is a Linux-related news feed. So to the extent that the commons is communism, then always.
Apparently some have a difficult time understanding the difference between libertarianism and communism (hard to believe). To explain using Linux as an example:
A libertarian is one respectful of each individual's liberty and property. He/she engages in projects with each other through the premise of contract. Volunteer to work on an open source project? That's an excellent example of such a contract, exercised by the choice of the individual. Just because the compensation doesn't come in currency doesn't mean there isn't compensation - the compensation is the reward recognized by the individual, whether it be intellectual gain, recognition, pleasure, etc.
A utopianist (communist, socialist, collectivist, democrat, national socialist, and other nice words for what is fundamentally just a human parasite living off of others hard work, talent and energy) is one who declares a ficticious claim to the liberty, property and choice of others. Look at recent patent parasites (such as the JPEG patent matter) - attorneys declaring the work of others to belong to them, and demanding financial tribute before others may continue their own work. Another example is Microsoft demanding computer manufacturers give up some of their property (in the form of currency) for every machine they sell and give it to Microsoft, regardless of whether it has Linux or Windows loaded. Or perhaps it's the RIAA seizing the work of free artists who wish to contribute their music to Shoutcasters and listeners, demanding they be paid a license for work they did not produce in order to "help the people." Yet another example is a coercive employer who demands rights to your Linux work after hours. Create a package for Linux? The employer may demand ownership of it, wrongfully so. All of these are examples of the parasite at work.
The quickest way to recognize a parasite is to listen for key words they use to trick others into giving up their goods (parasites are lazy, remember, and don't like to hold a gun against your head in order to get your stuff. They'd rather you feel guilty and give it up voluntarily).
Listen for words like the people, the collective, society, and other representations of individuals in plural. When you realize that no human being on earth is able to peer into the heads of thousands of others, cognitively knowing all of their intent, will and desire, you'll understand that such plural words subsequently do not make sense absent such psychic ability.
We can only speak for ourselves knowingly, and therefore have rights only to ourselves and our property.
Linux and other open source projects are perhaps some of the most compelling efforts today of the power and correctness of libertarianism.
The title of this essay comes from a story Illich tells of his arrival on a small, quiet island off the Dalmation coast as a your child.
This is a fact Everytime i mention we should have a fair society, where everyone has food, education, etc
Who is to decide what is fair? And who will take from one and give to another to enforce this decision?
Stalin, Hitler, FDR, Castro and countless others declared themselves fit to be such a judge. Some may argue that their implementation wasn't too terribly nice, but as redistributionists, they were quite effective and followed your objective with passion.
Also, what will you do when everyone decides to lay down and wait to be fed, since "everone has a right to food, education"? I'd like to spend the next 30 years at college - Harvard would be nice. Then I'll probably feel like retiring. Why can't we all do that?
Try thinking about the consequences of what you wish for, since it's always people like you that open the door for tyrants and murders to enter.
People that mod posts like this one above as troll need to spend some time in a place like the poster's relatives allegedly did.
Read the FAQ folks. If you disagree with someone, ignore it or post a rebuttal. Modding someone down as troll simply because they have a different viewpoint is an abuse, and also gives additional credit to the viewpoint you so abhor because you've provided no substantiative argument.
It is amusing, though, how certain viewpoints (usually relativists) are the first to demand their right to express their views, while shutting every other view out. Whether its the expression of faith or a pro-liberty viewpoint, they'll shout them down, call them "Nazis" (which is hilarious in itself since Nazis were socialists and of the same viewpoint of the relativist), or try to kick them out of the forum altogether.
READ THE MOD FAQ!!!
Bollier leaves himself wide open to this sort of wimsical attack. Bollier is not in any way proposing communism or anything 'left wing'. He's talking about bringing things back into ballence.
Capitalism and Democracy are a symbiotic pair. You cannot have one without the other. Too much Capitalism (where money controls everything) and you loose your democracy, it becomes totalitarian. Too much Democracy and you loose innovation, and things become an Animal Farm.
Currently we are flirting with totalitarianism, under the disguise of capitalism.
This subject has been up for over an hour, and the relevance window is now closed.
Get along now, nothing to see here!
Your skill at parody is adequate. I recommend you apply for a job at Mad Magazine.
Is it any surprise this poster (HanzoSan) also advocates pirating porno videos and other DVDs?
Apparently there isn't much that doesn't belong to ol' Hanzo that he won't steal.
There is no doubt in my mind that the tragedy of the commons is a real phenomenon. I think this guy really is a communist. But I'm intrigued about the drug research issue. Rather than simply complaining about how unfair it is, could we get a statement from a government representative to explain their side to the story. Surely there is a reason why they would grant free profits to a company that did very little of the research!
One thing that occurs to me is this: the treatments are largely developed with American money, even if some of it is charitable donations. If the manufactured drugs are sold at low cost (especially in foreign countries), very little of that money will come back to the US. If they are sold at high cost, then a lot of that money will be returned to the governement as taxes. Remember, the American government has a vested interest in seeing American companies succeed overseas.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
...from the air you breath through the GNU...
GNU provides us with free air? Or is it that I breath air through my GNUse?
Distributing doesnt have to be free, but water and food should be free for anyone who goes to the warehouse or to the water plant to get it.
If you go to the plant where the water is treated, you should be able to walk out with as much water as you want. IF you go to the warehouse where food is just sitting there, you should be able to take what you need.
Now, if you're talking about food and water to sustain life, you're right that anyone should be able to get it. And they can, in our society. But beyond having food, water, and shelter enough to survive, I think that people should be responsible to work and earn the money if they want any luxuries.
Thats bullshit, people are starving everyday, and theres homeless people all over the country and you are telling me people are getting free food and water? Theres places to get free water but its easy to get, you have to beg for it.
You might be able to get free food if you beg for that, why should homeless people have to beg for food and water when theres places which have water just sitting there that the average person cant want into, and warehouses the government has just sitting around with all this surplus food in it that homeless people cant just walk in and get, so they beg you for money to buy food.
Why ?
I'm not talking about luxury, I'm saying everyone should have free air, food, water, and education, and really everyone SHOULD have shelter.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Although the government requires companies to agree to a "fair pricing clause," the NCI has no clear standards to enforce. 15 The cost of manufacturing Taxol, according to Love, is about $500 per patient for an eighteen-month treatment regimen. Bristol-Myers Squibb charges more than twenty times that amount, thus earning between $4 million and $5 million a day on Taxol. 16 In 1999, the drug generated an estimated $1.7 billion in sales for the company.
Ever wonder about that mysterious lower back pain, tightness of the sphincter muscle, and chronic hemorrhoidal condition? Those are the symptoms of being repeatedly screwed, even raped, by the government and private industry - private industry supported by government welfare no less. Bend over...there's a lot more coming.
Superb intellecual reading? Not even close. This article is full of factual inaccuracies and pandering to popularized but inaccurate portrayals of the biotech industry.
e em .html
While the establishment of public mechanisms for control of govenment owned resources is perfectly reasonable, the biotech patent examples show a great fundamental ignorance of patent law and how it applies in such situations, fed by media distortion of the facts. A good debunking of widely held distortions on this topic is presented at the following link:
http://csf.colorado.edu/sristi/papers/patentonn
Ditto the examples where the drug research is viewed as 'given away' without just compensation from pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies develop more than 90% of the medicines that are approved by the FDA. The fact is that NIH's own internal audits of the process clearly show that most cooperative programs with drug companies develop new scientific knowledge that is widely shared, not new proprietary drugs. Even when cases arise that involve identification of a new drug, the vast bulk of these drugs fail to result in commercially usable products due to effectiveness, toxicity, deliverability and other issues.
Here are some other articles about the Commons:
h tml
http://www.rafi.org/article.asp?newsid=271
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3843/mngcjm.
However, this sort of "socialism" isn't necessarily the opposite of "capitalism". The largest corporations today have made ample use of the "commons", they drill for oil, use the oxygen in our atmosphere, use sea and air shipping lanes, etc. What we have is a capitalist subsystem, enclosed in a larger socialist universe. Capitalist corporations are citizens in the socialist universe, the only difference between them and individual citizens is their relative strength to help themselves to the public goods.
Linux only works due to the fact that everyone shares everything, its the sharing of the code that creates linux. Its socialism. Accept it.
It also proves socialism (sharing the wealth) can actually work, at least for information.
While it wont work for labor, it DOES work for intellectual property.
So this means we dont really need ownership of ideas to innovate and create products.
Libertarianism? Most of the Linux software, is GNU, GNU is socialist. Libertarian is BSD. Why dont you go use FreeBSD.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"You might be able to get free food if you beg for that, why should homeless people have to beg for food and water when theres places which have water just sitting there that the average person cant want into, and warehouses the government has just sitting around with all this surplus food in it that homeless people cant just walk in and get, so they beg you for money to buy food."
Sounds like someone who's never been their.
The government does give away food. A lot of charitable organizations do. Water is easy to obtain. Hell if you want it free, wait for the rains.
Is Slashdot using a new scale or do you just give Frequent Patriot points for shouting Communist?
Sharing and distributing the wealth is socialism.
A society based on democracy and sharing. Because you choose what you share and what you dont share, this makes it SOCIALISM.
Socialism = a society where everyone shares to create a utopia, and thats what Linux is, because everything in linux is open source.
Theres no government in socialism, and theres no government in linux, you still have the freedom to keep your code closed source it just wont be a part of GNU Linux.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
And we've seen what happens to governments that aren't designed for the common people...
When are we going to see this stuff get modded to Troll -1?
The grotesque myth that society can't foster both the common good and individual liberty should die, and btw, there are plenty (like almost all in history) of societies that have denied the freedom of the individual and still thrived. Conservatives love to encourage this kind of thought, mostly 'cause it reinforces existing authority.
I thought this kind of rhetoric became nonsense in the late 80's, and considering the current political climate in the industrialized world, well, it's near moronic.
-dameron
Wait, what if the child has no money? Isn't the citizen being altruistic then, something Ayn Rand was dead set against? (I honestly don't know much about this. It's a serious question, not a troll.)
"Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
We arent flirting with it anymore, havent you saw the enron situation? what about sen hollings?
Democracy isnt working anymore due to capitalism itself.
And to say you cannot have democracy without capitalism is stupid, Socialism = Democracy without capitalism, I admit it might not work as long as we still have to do physical labor, but in the future, when we have good robotics socialism will start to look very good.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Kids are really spoiled today.
If you had grow up in a cruel dictatorship should wouldn't bitch about laws that just regulates you when you may hurt someone else. There is no laws forcing opinions on you. The US is VERY free. You are not free to hurt someone else but you are free to a very high degree.
You just betcha we need more of a concept of "commons" in this increasingly hellish post-industrial capitalism.
... or the current trend towards too-expensive cars will drive (pun) hordes of people into poverty.
How many times in the last several years have I heard mechanics lament how unmaintainable cars are becoming?
How much more climb can we have in auto prices ... EPA restrictions ... insurance requirements?
If cars become too expensive in general to buy, maintain, insure and put into compliance with pollution controls, then a whole bunch of people will simply be walking.
And there's a crisis that is as certainly in the making as the upcoming water wars in the American West.
Transportation is a fine example. There must be either public trans of marked effectiveness, or some sort of Common Automotive Engine that can be afforded
There needs to be a "commons" in transportation in America. Either it can be bus/trolley/train systems, or cars will have to be opened up for affordability. And this is just one common thing that a wealthy nation should afford its citizenry.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
What absolute crap. The world isnt rich greedy corporates vs. "The People".
Its ordinary working people and the companys they work for on one side, and unproductive members of society (ie. Welfare Recipients) teamed up with the Governments who fund them on the other side.
Communism failed so get over it. Now that article has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
But I wont bang my head against a wall I just need to comfort myself with a quick few rereads of Atlas Shrugged.
Your skit seems to make sense at first glance, but you haven't carried it out to its logical conclusion:
PARENT of CHILD: You monster! What have you done? I'm going to kill you!
CAPITALIST: Uh-oh...
In the long run, murder is not profitable. The social consequences will eventually catch up with you.
That's whats great about (some) big business. They've figured out how to keep those pesky social consequences at arm's length.
Of course, it's not just big business' fault--society has to be literate and motivated in order to impose social consequences.
Is this a first-class troll or are you out of you mind?
Capitalism and Democracy are a symbiotic pair. You cannot have one without the other.
:o\
Maybe someone ought to let the Chinese Government in on this little pearl of wisdom, then.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
What you showed here is a lack of morals, not greed. A person that would kill a kid for two bucks, would rape a woman for a three, rob cars for four, or knock off your ex-girlfriend for five. The horriable thing is the total lack of morals shown by the people that and loot from people that earned money (taxes), grow crops, produce goods, or thought of the ideas we love so much. These producers have spent their time to produce and has the freedom to produce as much they wish. They have the right to keep what the earned and do what they wish with it. They have a God given right to keep their earnings, and you DO NOT have the right to loot, plunder, or demand their earnings or what the produce. That is stealing.
In America, you are where you are because you made the choice to be there. If you can't get a job that pays more then 10 bucks, it's because you made the choice not to study. If you are stuck in a job you hate, it's because you have not gotten off your ass to go back to school. If you have a dozen kids you can't feed, it's because you decied not to use protection!!! You are were you are because you made choices to put you there!!! So stop bitching because you want something someone else has. And while you're at it get off your ass to work towards your goals.
The problem is, the plunders are starting to out number the producers.
The journey is better then the end.
Any nice libertarian knows that just because the government calls something a right - does not mean that it is. You are assuming that copyrights are some type of free market property right, and the GPL bypasses it. I am assuming that copyrights are not a genuine property right at all, and the GPL minimizes the dammage caused by trying to pretend that it is.
The notion that copyrights are free market is bullshit, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
What's missing from Bollier's essay is the explanation of _why_ there is the push to wrap all commons in enclosure. It is implied that greed and selfishness are the motivating factors, but I suggest these two are not motivators but are instead the actions taken on behalf of a lower-level motivator; specifically, the human need to be and to be recognized as successful.
This leads to the question, "What values are used to determine success?" A corporate CEO who can look another CEO in the face and say, "My business made more money than yours did last quarter" is considered a success in our society even if the _true_ costs of his success are not reflected in the money he gathered via his business. This type of "success" is only possible when the measurement of success is made _only_ in currency.
The true, core problem is this: We've developed a economic system that only recognizes wealth when it can be measured in currency. The big problem with this is that the worth, or the value, of many things cannot be acurately measured in currency. In other words, wealth and currency are not the same thing. Traditionally, currency has been a symbolic function of wealth but we've seen the reversal of this; now currency is considered the wealth and what cannot be "currency valued" is considered worthless until such time as it can be valued in terms of currency.
When the _costs_ of doing business are measured only in currency, you see a similar warping of the concept of wealth. Who pays the cost of dirty air when car and truck manufacturers make the dirtiest engines they can get away with? Well, there is no cost to making dirty engines which foul the air because there is no currency valuation for dirty vs. clean air; clean air has no value in the market place because it has no currency value. Apply this same scenario to water, food, communications mediums, etc. and you start to see the scale of the damage done simply because certain things of tremendous value are not quickly and easily measured in terms of how many dollars they can fetch in the marketplace.
Another obvious problem with measuring wealth only in currency is that the intangibles which are part of the original wealth are usually stripped away, leaving only the husk of the original thing which is being currency-valued. Concepts are quick to be disgarded -- freedom, creativity, etc. -- simply because they cannot be given a currency value. So not only is the original wealth stripped away by the process of currency-valuation, but much of the fundamental wealth of the original thing -- the associated concepts -- is tossed out like so much distracting, annoying trash. Furthermore, in the process of currency-valuation of the original wealth, the process of marketing applies the concept of "least common denominator" and finally, in effect, renders what once was a item of wealth into the least valuable thing it can possibly be while still having currency value.
The argument used by the politicians and bureaucrats who give away the "commons" areas to business for commercial exploitation is this: the commons has no value until such time as it is being converted into currency (that is, profits for business.) If you don't believe it, go do some quick research and reading and you'll be quickly enlightened as to the supposed rational "reasoning" of our government when it comes to the public trust and anything which may be construed to be a "commons."
So we see the commercialization of _everything_ because that is the only way we as a society have come to measure wealth; in terms of our currency. I can't wait until I'm charged for the priviledge of breathing dirty, diesel-fume-reeking air, eating pesticide-poisoned food, drinking polluted water from the tap, seeing and hearing nothing but crap from commercialized media -- just so some ignorant asshole CEO can say aloud in his country club, "My business made more money than yours did last quarter."
Oh, wait, we're almost there! Any enterprising CEOs out there want to start charging us money for the act of breathing? Well, lucky us -- they just haven't yet figured out how to do that yet.
May the heirs of humanity be so fortunate.
*grumble*
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
There is no doubt that the issue of the "commons" is an important one in our age. Furthermore, it is clear to most that the concept of Copyright has been abused.
But this article shows its political biases in a number of ways. Early on, the use of the term "corporate classes" is pretty telling.
The attack upon the drug companies used very misleading data. The article implies that a drug company does little other than take a government funded drug, fill out a little paperwork, and then sell it for way above production costs. There is no attempt at balance in this presentation. In fact, a drug company takes the results of basic research, and invests vasts amounts of money (typically a billion or more per drug) in clinical trials required by a government bureaucracy (FDA). This is risk money expended without knowing if the drug will be successful, and in fact many are not. The drug company then must advertise the drug (which includes providing real information), produce it, and market it. In addition to that, it is liable to unpredictable but huge losses if some unforeseen adverse event occurs in even a tiny number of uses. In other words, the idea of the drug may be in the commons, but the implementation uses vast amounts of private capital, at high risk.
The failure of the paper to clarify this point tells me that the author has a clearly anti-private property bias, and is willing to lie in order to put forward his points. This is unfortunate, because he there are valid viewpoints in some of what he says.
Another issue that is brushed aside is the "taking" of landowner's property by environmental rules. Through the use of quotes, this very serious issue is simply discarded as one requiring no thought and engendering no reasoned dispute. In fact, those of us living in the wilder parts of the US are well aware that our personal property (and to a large extent our financial future) may be arbitrarily taken from us in the name of protection of a species that we may not even be aware of. In other words, there is a clear case that these takings, if necessary to protect the species, should be paid for by the beneficiaries of the commons, but instead are arbitrarily taken from random individuals!
At least when capitalists use the government to take land (such as the railroad's eminent domain takings), they are required to compensate the landowners. But in the view of the author of this paper, apparently the environmental takings are justified with no compensation to the person injured by those takings.
Thus, overall, I would say that this is a well written piece of propaganda attacking private property rights not only in areas where those rights have been overextended by corrupt government (copyright extensions, DMCA) but in areas where they rights are fundamental, owned by individuals, and deeply rooted in history.
It is an attempt to extend the commons to the those things which have traditionally been the very fundaments of private property: your land. Admittedly, this is a small part of the article, but it is an example of the dangerous thinking behind such a polemic.
The only good weather is bad weather.
This means we need a great public education system, we need to provide free food, water and shelter for all, this allows people who are in poverty to actually focus on improvement and not just on survival.
And who's buying? And what about the people that don't want this? Look at the winos on the street - the don't give a damn about your education. Give them a room in your house and they rape and murder your daughter.
Get your crummy paws out of my wallet. If you want to give your money to an undeserving wretch, be my guest, but come to steal hard working people's money and you'd better be prepared to face our judgment.
TRW say our rights aren't shrinking which includes our rights to the commons, so this guy must be mistaken.
Sharing and distributing the wealth is socialism.
Sharing has taken place in nearly every governmental or ethic system. The same with the distribution of wealth. Just because you have either or both of these things happening, you can't just conclude wala... socialism
Consider from an objectivist's perspective...
sharing: I choose to provide money to organizations I believe in, sharing the product of my work. I also spend numerous hours each week supporting a nonprofit service organization because of the benefit it has for my community. I also guest lecture at the university and don't take any financial compensation for it. Why is this not socialism?
distribution of wealth: Distribution happens all the time in my corner of the universe. I pay employees for work they've done, distributing wealth from my company. I mentioned I contribute to some organizations as well. And I pay people at the store for stuff. Why is this not socialism?
The answer comes back to the issue of who is making the decision on whether to share or to distribute. In the previous examples, I'm doing the deciding. In socialism, an elite social class appoints itself to make these decisions for others.
Recommendation: You've got to challenge your definitions, because incorrect ones like yours about socialism/sharing/distribution lead you to false conclusions. Critical assessment of definitions may just make you a much happier and successful person in life.
People do whatever they can for themselves, supported by their individual need, ambition, energy, luck, and viciousness. Given a homogeneous distribution of such entities, the game then becomes concentrating and maintaining relatively large amounts of personal property and influence through negotiation, collaboration, trickery, and, in more recent history, the development of technological locks on power. Collaborations engender class stratification and the development of a ruling class with some vassal classes, stable until a revolution occurs. A revolution occurs when a collaborating group develops to oppose the current ruling class that is more powerful than that ruling class.
Traditionally power has been defined by the size of the collaborating group. Given equal access to the technology of warfare, a large collaboration of people could force a redistribution of property when the motivation became large enough. The task of a ruling class here is to placate the majority, who may not even like opulence, while maintaining and growing the wealth of the ruling class. Hence the development of liberal notions such as common property.
The principle means of sustenance for a ruling class is simple governance -- the establishment of laws, authority, and punishment. If this principle structure is successful on its own, it is the only structure that will be applied; this is the "conservative" aspect of government. Where the technology of warfare is open and fairly easy to development, a secondary strategy is needed to ensure that the majority of the populace feels vested in the structures of the ruling class. This is what is manifested as the notion of "commons"; this is the liberal aspect of government.
It is quite possible for the dynamic to change such that liberal government is no longer necessary. Two factors (at least) in the twentieth century support a somewhat less liberal structure: (1) the transition of warfare into a highly esoteric technology, and (2) the control of popular culture by the ruling class.
(1) Esoteric Warfare
This is a survey question: "Do you feel that if you got together with a majority of your fellow citizens (who are not in government positions) you could successfully challenge, overthrow, and reform the United States government?" Imagine this question was being asked 100 years ago and 200 years ago. Would the answer be different?
The contention here is that the weight of the threat to "challenge, overthrow, and reform" has diminished significantly over the past hundred years. Thus the forces on the social structure have changed significantly, and the structure itself can be expected to change, towards the conservative.
(2) The Control of Popular Culture
In the past the cultures of the ruling classes and the vassals were distinct and different. The ruling classes supported the arts, the vassals practiced the crafts and the "folk" media. The folk media were a ground for class identification and the breeding and expression of class based dissent. The vassals are now consumers of culture that is produced through the means of the ruling class, so that the opportunity for class identification and dissent is somewhat muted. Instead culture has become a more effective way of placating the majority than enlightened liberality has been.
The Micky copyright laws force an opinion on you as to the length of copyright. Speed laws force an opinion on you as to what is a safe speed to drive or not...(whether or not you are the highly skilled at avoiding collisions at high speeds). The DMCA laws enforce an opinion as to what the end user can do with copyrighted works in a digitla medium. Accounting laws enforce opinions on how to conduct business. Building permits enforce opinions as to what can be built where, and how durable it must be....No laws forcing opinions on you...Ha ha ha ha ha.
pocket. I am disabled, as I see it primarily because the government passes laws that enforces opinions on how to do things that make no sense to me. You try living in a world that makes no sense to you. I get a checkevery month from the government. I get food stamps and housing assistance as well. I am prepared to face your judgement.
I am Robert Claypool and I live at:
417 S. Manning
Muncie, IN
Come and get me.
Why doesn't he stick to the most likely suspect for common property "air" and try to disprove that. As for ownership, I would think that the ability to use would trump exclusion in being central to ownership. There are many ways that someone could exclude others ability to use a given resource that would also excude that person's ability to use. Also what about exclusion against the empty set?
If it's not a God given right, what's the whole deal about stealing? Is not stealing taking that which is not your from another? Let's see:
steal (stl) v, - To take the property of another without right or permission.
Thus, to have something which is yours is a God given right to have that property. To demand their property at gun point unequal to every other people in relation to what they have (make the rich pay more in taxes) is to steal, plunder, pillage, rifle, sack, loot, ransack, spoil, spoliate, despoil, strip, sweep, gut, forage, levy blackmail, pirate, pickeer, maraud, lift cattle, poach, badger, hold up, stick up, bunco, bunko, filibuster, swindle, peculate, embezzle, sponge, mulct, rook, bilk, pluck, pigeon, fleece, defraud, and obtaining under false pretenses.
Basicly everytime you demand property by higher taxes on those with more, demand that produces give their product without trade, you are being a thief. Plain in simple. Prove me wrong.
The journey is better then the end.
Oh, and have you seen the laws of most countries?
Just what is nihilism anyways?
The definition you stole from the dictionary made no mention of "God", so it's not clear how property is "thus" a "God given right". It looks like a man-given right to me.
Capitalism is a socioeconomic system in which ALL individual rights are protected. Thus, under capitalism, killing of an individual without the individual's consent would definitely NOT be permissible.
Fucking leftist moron...
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Kid's today aren't spoiled. Kid's today are educated. It's your lazy, bitch-ass generation that was spoiled. You didn't "grow up in a cruel dictatorship" either, so don't act like you fucking did. If you didn't have your head up your ass, you would realize that laws today don't just "regulate you when you may hurt someone else". They regulate you before you've even thought about hurting someone else. Heaven forbid someone "force an opinion on you". They're doing far worse. They're forcing their opinion on us by forcing us to ACT ACCORDING TO THEIR OPINION.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
In a free market, a producer--any producer, of anything--has total control over what he produces, and no one else has any claim on what the producer produces without his consent. Generally, this comes through the form of a sale or a gift, although there are plenty of other methods involved as well. Copyrights are simply a means of ensuring, through a system of legal penalties, that the producer of certain types of works is able to enjoy his rights to what he produces and to prevent anyone from using what he has produced without his consent.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Living conditions, wage, etc. are not what constitute slavery. Slavery is when one is forced to work against his will. 19th century coal miners weren't working against their will, under the threat of violent force if they refused. Sure, maybe the consequences of not choosing to work in the coal towns weren't terribly desirable either, but the fact remains that a choice was made available, and no one was threatening force in order to coerce anyone into choosing one way or the other, and that's all that matters.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
In a free market, a producer--any producer, of anything--has total control over what he produces, and no one else has any claim on what the producer produces without his consent. Generally, this comes through the form of a sale or a gift, although there are plenty of other methods involved as well.
Actually, the producer has controll over what he produces, nobody forces him to make that info available to others, and nobody deprives him of doing what ever he dreams of or wishes with his own copy of the info.
Copyrights are simply a means of ensuring, through a system of legal penalties, that the producer of certain types of works is able to enjoy his rights to what he produces and to prevent anyone from using what he has produced without his consent.
The right to controll what you produce is not a right after it leaves your domain. If I buy an apple from the store, they can't tell me how to eat it, who to share it with, or how I can resell it. If I take the sead of the apple and grow 10 coppies of it, that is my right too, and they can't tell me what to do with those eaither. The producers rights end when the apple leavs their domain, even if the apple can be coppied and distributed without cost. They are free to get money from the first sell, and they are free to provide apple services, make apple pies, etc... But what I do with that Apple after the fact is MY DAM RIGHT not theirs.
Well.. Ayn Rand also emphasized personal honour, responsibility, and the value of money as a discriminator of the type of person you are. In the long run, people who break agreements, are irresponsible tend to lose their money.
Or, at least, would, if government didn't point guns at the honest men, giving the looters, the whiners, and freeloaders their chance to bleed the real producers dry.
So CAPITALIST would be bound by his agreement to CITIZEN #1; he would break his contract if he then turned around and killed, cooked, and served the child, no matter what the profit. Further, if he did, few people would entrust him with their child.
At least, ideally. "ideal" Rand is like "ideal" communism: it sounds good in theory.
In a world where these entities not only act in practice but even use the LANGUAGE of class (hell, the language of feudal aristocracy!) to describe their 'peasants' and the cash value of same, I feel it is wrong not to acknowledge the situation.
We are not talking about suspicions that 'maybe these corporations don't fully embrace the humanity of their lesser employees', or speculations on how they talk behind closed doors (which they must- Enron? WorldCom? There's someone making a lot of judgement calls to hose the 'peasants', in corporation after corporation). We are not even talking about suspicions that corporations will play lotto on the lives of its peasants and ex-peasants, because that is PROVEN and hard fact, again in corporation after corporation. We're talking about the fact that in at least one case the corporation was on record in literally using the words 'dead peasants' to describe this group of people. Not 'dead guys', not 'dead ex-employees' but 'dead peasants'. This, in spite of well reported reluctance to reveal the practice at all, much less the mindset behind it, and it's so widespread that one corporation just came out and said it (in internal reports- I believe specifically it was a memo that came to light requesting a printed-up chart with the dead peasants in a certain column).
Please tell me why 'corporate classes' is not exactly the right way to refer to this situation in which corporations are referring to American citizens as peasants, speculating on their lives for corporate gain, and behaving as if American citizens have no more intrinsic value than livestock, grain, or office supplies (to use a Dilbert reference).
I will settle for that, though there isn't a point you make that I wouldn't dispute. Don't see how spending money on advertising deserves government-granted monopolies, and you have the whole environmental thing backwards- the article is talking about private interests taking property previously held by government, not the other way around! I would say 'fine' to merely nailing down all public lands as protected areas and not bothering to expand this, but all public lands are basically under heavy attack to be privatized and strip-mined^H^H^H^Hdeveloped ;)
That's as may be. You do everyone a disservice by complaining about the term 'corporate classes'. What the hell else would you call it?
This is a red herring. The rant against "information as property" is a straw-man argument, because that is not a mainstream position, and in particular, the existence of copyright and patent law does not imply a legal recognition of information as property.
What social consequences, exactly? Try carrying your argument into the real world. File it under 'dead peasant insurance', after 'Bhopal' and dipped in the water from that stream in the USA poisoned so bad that fish placed in it dissolved in minutes, their skin fucking falling off.
WHAT social consequences? You're making that part up.
Free Market means that anyone can produce anything they want and nobody not even the government has any right to stop them. Copyright is a government sanctioned monopoly, the great big hand of evil government stopping competition, and so therefore is about as non free market as something can be.
J00 4RE 0WNED!!!
Bwahahahahaa!!!!
In other words, because someone came up with a lousy name for a form of corporate insurance, all of the class warfare rhetoric is valid.
.... and landowners fighting environmental regulations insist that they "own" wildlife and that the regulations amount to an unconstitutional "taking" by government.
Nonsense. In America, we don't have classes... in the sense of hereditary social strata. Take a look at the backgrounds of most corporate higher-ups and you will not find people born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Social mobility, which is very strong in America especially, gives lie to the term "classes."
As far as the business of insuring employees - that is an aberration in the corporate system, not a condemnation of the whole system. And in any case, when you are dealing with masses of people and financial issues, you *do*, of necessity, end up using commodity terms to refer to the people (or at least the aspect of them that you are interested in). This doesn't mean that you think of them as cattle or peasants or anything else. It is just a matter of process.
As far as the environmental thing... go back and read it.
Well... never mind. Here is the quote:
This is a direct quote from the article. Note the term "land owners?" This is not about public land. Note also that this phrase gives another example of the fraudulent and polemical tone of the piece. Landowners fighting environmental takings do NOT claim they own the wildlife! What they do claim is that if they are to make large expenditures on behalf of the common good (for environmental reasons) that they should be reimbursed from the commons for their extraordinary contribution. If somebody suddenly can no longer build on his land, which he paid large amounts of money for, he is claiming that this constitutes a taking and that he should be reimbursed. And he is of course correct. The author, however, tries to brush aside this entire argument by mischaracterizing it (a favorite tactic of the left) so that it seems ridiculous. Environmentalists do their best to simply *take* that person's property rights for the common good.
This happens all the time here in Arizona. An example, where the expense is absorbed by a class of people, recently popped up: The Salt River Project reservoir - Roosevelt Lake - which is the major water supply for Phoenix, has been drawn down to very low levels due to a prolonged drought. A rare species of bird has taken up residence in the area normally covered by water. Now the project cannot fill up this area again without absorbing whatever expense is required to relocate the birds, or protect them or whatever... and this includes all the studies and lawsuits necessary to prove they have done the job. This is on land that was UNDERWATER until a couple of years ago. This is what is meant by a taking! The SRP is being forced to pay a cost, due to no fault of its own, to maintain mankind's interest in preserving this species of bird. I would argue that mankind, or at least the federal government, should provide recompense.
Of course SRP is big, so they are hard to feel sorry for. But exactly the same thing happens to the little guy around here. This is why the common way to deal with endangered species by some landowners (this poster not included) is "shoot, scoop and bury."
Note that this has nothing to do with the commons in any traditional legal sense. Private land never was part of the commons.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Virtual mod points to you.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
I'll bite.
How do you explain the existance of slavery under Capitalism? Oh. That's right, black people aren't individuals, they're property.
Fucking capitalist pig!
Preventing them from leaving is not force or coercion?
Yeah, I really disagree with some of his basic premises.... he has a mistaken idea of where the country is right now, assuming it's failing at where it is right now and therefore fails in other areas.
The structures are already in place to protect the commons, people just need to enforce them.
WHAT social consequences? You're making that part up.
Just like all the social consequences Soviet leadership faced for committing crimes unthinkable to capitalists, like the Polish holocaust, Ukranian slaughters, unthinkable nuclear disasters, popular Soviet motivational management techniques, and countless other crimes committed by socialists. Gorbachav and his predecessors laughed every time European media fools screamed about "capitalist atrocities" - even Europeans know better from their own blood crimes about what evil can be committed.
Of course, the Soviets have no monopoly on such crimes. China's record with population control, Cambodian adventures in building mountains using human body parts, and other socialist 20th century achievements are plenty.
So when rational Americans hear Europeans whine about the evils of capitalism, we're thankful that we have two world wars and Vietnam to remind us that the Europeans don't know crap about how the world really works.
Is there any surprise the only part of Europe that has growing individual liberty and capitalism are former nations terrorized by the Soviets (e.g. Czech Republic, Latvia, Ukraine, etc.)?
*scoove*
"There will be no war in our time" - Tony Blair to George Bush last week regarding recent promises by EU friend Saddam Hussain.
and you will still find some of the most intelligent discussions on moderated Usenet groups, like comp.lang.c++.moderated. The very fact that the vast majority of Usenet groups are crap and increasingly ignored by new users, also makes it possible to create a few oases of intelligent umoderated discussions with a rather select user clientel.
Isn't the citizen being altruistic then, something Ayn Rand was dead set against?
Glad you mention you don't know (rather than presume otherwise). It's a shame that so many people argue against something while never understanding what they're arguing against isn't what they thought it was.
Objectivism (the philosophy Ayn Rand helped recognize) has no unique claim on kindness, giving, etc. However, Rand wrote many essays about the topic of giving, trying to help people understand that the best kind of giving has two important elements to it:
1. it is an individual choice: If you're in the US and have ever worked for a big company, you've probably had your paycheck looted by the United Way. How did you feel about being rounded up and told by managers "you will give part of your paycheck to the United Way because our company wants to look good to others"? If this is "capitalism" operationally defined, then these capitalists are no different than the socialists in government who steal in the same manner.
Compare that to how you felt when you saw someone truly in need and helped them - like changing a tire for an elderly person, painting a handicapped neighbor's house, etc. (hint: giving your time and labor is much more impressive than tossing careless unneeded dollars). When it is your choice to give, the gift means so much more to the other party. And fundamentally, no other has a right to demand you give your time, money, labor, property, etc. just so they can feel good or improve their public image.
2. there are rewards besides monetary gain: Nearly every critic of capitalism screams about the evils of money. Yet so many true capitalists work on a more fundamental level. I've seen farmers work in perhaps the purist capitalist system - one will help the other repair a tractor. Then the other helps lend a hand bringing the crop in during a time of need. Each man is self-compelled to honor his contract - it is part of his definition and character. Rewards in this system are much greater. From increased reputation in one's community to enhanced knowledge, you'll find that true objectivists look at money as a hygiene factor rather than a motivational (e.g. it's there to pay the basics; there is much more to life per enrichment than accumulating money). It's probably for this reason objectivists don't rule the world, and looting socialists (in government and big business alike) do.
Really, the examples relativists set of "evil capitalists" are not capitalists at all. Enron, Global Crossing, Citigroup, etc. are much better examples of relativists pursuing theft, parasitism, forced redistribution, etc. It is sad, subsequently, that the battle being fought in the United States today is between two socialist camps - one in control of government and the other controlling big business (any surprise that Robert Rubin, a top Democrat advisor, left his government post to chair a Fortune 100 company? It happens everywhere). You have to visit a farm or small merchant to see any evidence of real capitalism.
The only problem you've got with your statement is the pesky word "altruism." As defined by relativists, it is an intellectual virus that serves as a guilt trip, hopefully motivating others to buy into the con game. "Altruism" to them means "working hard but giving the product of your work to me so I can figure out who deserves it, while keeping a bunch for myself." Again, United Way, most governments, large corporations, etc. all fall into this category. Altruism does not mean "care about other people" - this happens in all sorts of people of all sorts of philosophies.
Think about the people you know for a moment. I'm sure we've all experienced exceptional kindness from people of all sorts of backgrounds - priests, merchants, teachers, farmers, etc. At the same time, I'm sure we can find examples of horrible people who've been priests, merchants, teachers, etc. as well. The same goes for social ideology - there are socialists that aren't conspiring robbers and murders, and there are capitalists who are cheats and killers.
So if you want to understand objectivism, just recognize that it is an ethic system that says that it is the individual's decision, not a coercive other party, to give, to create, to love, to produce, to hate, etc., and the individual's role to accept the consequence (good or bad) for those decisions.
*scoove*
This is actual a common critisism of bsing a society on the free market alone, made by true conservatives. In your example, the social network is showned to be more important than the market forces. For a conservative, networking and cultural values should take precedense over market forces.
The problem is, the plunders are starting to out number the producers.
/., we've got no shortage of these in what one would hope would be a more educated, aware community. Just remember, the hogs are usually the first casualties...
There are lots of parallels to this experience. Limited readings I've done in the evolution of multicellular creatures, for instance, has shown recurring blossoming of producers, only to show a sudden rise in parasites, which obliterate most of the producers, and they then are wiped out with nothing to live off of, and we return to a new cycle (albeit with many less critters alive).
This cycle repeats until a balance is reached - usually occuring when the producers evolve to possess the ability to recognize and kill the parasites. The parasites also need to do their part in becoming less deadly and coexisting better, or they simply accelerate the collapse of the system.
Looking at the status in most of the world today (from US, EU, etc. to Africa and "lesser developed" nations), parasitism is at a peak. 60% taxes, domination of all governmental and economic circles, etc. shows the parasites have broken loose and are readying the world for collapse. In fact, we came close in the 20th century with the rise of exceptional parasites in Germany, Russia, China, etc - sort of Ebola-like forms. Now they've moderated to AIDS like forms - slower to kill but much more effective - such as EU and US government and business. Even major religions like Islam and Christianity have been converted to parasitic forms.
So will the producers recognize and terminate their parasites? Or will we see yet another collapse of civilization and a half-millenium to recovery as we did the last time we had such a rise (from Roman to barbarian parasitism)?
Perhaps the most telling predictor is seeing how many naive producers willingly give themselves up to parasites, like happy hogs walking to slaughter. From reading the posts on
*scoove*
The right to controll what you produce is not a right after it leaves your domain. If I buy an apple from the store, they can't tell me how to eat it, who to share it with, or how I can resell it. If I take the sead of the apple and grow 10 coppies of it, that is my right too, and they can't tell me what to do with those eaither. The producers rights end when the apple leavs their domain, even if the apple can be coppied and distributed without cost. They are free to get money from the first sell, and they are free to provide apple services, make apple pies, etc... But what I do with that Apple after the fact is MY DAM RIGHT not theirs.
bad example.
unfortunatly, apples are naturally grown, and aren't "owned" by anyone. Now a new music album, on the other hand, is a creative work that could not have been gotten without the artist, so it SHOULD be copyrighted.
Any system in which slavery is permissible is by definition not capitalism.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
How are they using force to prevent them from leaving?
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
You probably didn't read it at all, I found it very interesting, and well written.
What a tiny percentage of america you describe. How many Vanderbilt's are in top offices, just out of curiousity? Bob Dole certainly isn't a member of a "corporate class" - he comes from small town Kansas (Russell). He is the only generation Dole in office. Gore is second generation as is Bush.
I think you are pointing out something much different: the start of political classes. These are not "corporate classes!"
Oh... and Kennedy didn't get his money from "corporations" either. His father was a criminal (liquor smuggler during prohibition).
The Roosevelts are just about out of the political world.
So your very few cases hardly prove that we have "corporate classes.:
The only good weather is bad weather.
The foundation of Objectivism is ( in Ayn Rand's own words ):
"Only the concrete is real."
Note that -- it is an abstract object, that declares only concrete objects, not abstract ones, are/can-be real.
For any philosophy/religion to use, as proof/validation/foundation, an object that declares its kind of entity to be not valid, is ( let's be polite ) daft.
Capitalism is a religion, like any other, that holds its god/worth ( capital ) to be the primary god/worth.
It isn't possible to hold one reality to be primary, and hold some other worth/reality to be primary too ( same as one can't have 2 contradictory really-primary relationships: I geek/think, because I find that belonging-worth can't get me my own root meaning, and bogus relationship isn't fair, or effective ).
If economic position/action is one's god/heart-meaning, fine. If belonging-authority is one's god/heart-meaning, fine. If political believing is one's god/heart-meaning, fine. If reductionism/materialism and the Position acquired by practising reductionism on others/others'-reality is one's god/heart-meaning, fine. Don't lie about it ( to one's self or to reality ), though: falseness don't get valid results.
Any who go-on about family-values/human-worth while their action proves they value individual/group importance and economic importance and keeping/having privilege/position ( even if many others don't even have the basics, my privilege comes "before" their fundamental worth. . . ), and assumed authority. . . speak with actions more truly than with words. We ( our cultures ) train ourselves to grow these "values", and complain when we get consequences of our own committing-reality! Idiocy.
Anyone who honestly has warred with one's own unconscious ignorance won't be able to be surprised that this is reality, but even when one has warred for years to own one's essence/meaning, and still finds that unconscious ignorance owns one, it's still staggering ( the strength and overall life manipulatingness of unconscious ignorance is staggering -- it takes hugely intense, emotionally profound experience to get any new knowing into unconscious mind -- unconscious mind thinks drunk, and it's more fundamental than transient ego-mind, so it owns us. Read "Hypnosis for the Seriously Curious" to understand how fundamentally obtuse our deep-mind really is. )
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
BS.
Read "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System"
( Paul Fussell )
Informative Review
Review
Amazon.com, 4.5 stars
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
Ok first, on your pervious post you said the redistrobution of wealth is not stealing, but provide no other statement to back it up. So provide to me that taking my money and giving to a poor bum isn't stealing from me?
Second, taking money from me and give to the poor provide what for me? How does this better my life? It simply doesn't. What you are doing is punshing my success and rewarding their failure.
I make somewhere in the 70k-90k range. I don't have a maid. I live in a large house. I have bills like everyone else, but I don't worry to much about them. I drive a car made this year. And yes, I have a six month easter egg. I not rich, I'm good. I had to work my ass for many years to get to this point. And I intend to work my ass off to get to the next level where I can have that large house and the maid. And damn it, it I work to get here, I should keep what I earn.
Right now I pay enough taxes for my seven dead beats friends to not pay a single bit of income taxes. They did not finsh school, have not study for a job, have not worked as hard as me, has not made the good choices I have made, nor have the will power to get off their bum to do something about it. But it's ok for you to take money from me to give to these people? Why? Oh, they are starving, they drive shitty cars, they live in crappy homes. Guess what? SO DID I!!! I grew up poor, went to a crappy school, lived on the streets for a year, drove a crappy car, but guess what? I got off my ass and did something about my life. I didn't need government to help me. I didn't need their tax breaks. I did not need anything but the will power to get off my ass and do something about it.
You want to speak of the rest of the world? How about this, the rest of the world does not enjoy the economical freedom America enjoy. Their government tax the shit out them, regurlate their production, control their resounces, and forces high tax on imports to increase production localy. Look, you want to have a rich country? Let the people be free. Look at the facts, the freest country in the world are the riches. You take away that freedom to keep what people produce and earn, the country is poor. Prove me wrong that a free country is not rich. Freedom includes fair taxes for the rich and poor.
Here's my look at giving things to the poor. If you reward a dog for crapping on the carpet, will he ever shit outdoors? If you give a kid a dollar everytime he bashes a mailbox, will he ever stop? If you give a poor person money for being a bum, will he ever go to school to get a job? If you reward a action, you will get more of it. Allowing the poor to live as a bum without a job is rewarding their way of life. We already provide school, college funding, job training, transportain, along with many other things. We do not need to take money from the produces to give to the bums in a way to thus rewarding the fact they are poor!!
Here's the simple truth, the people that are poor in America are that way because they made bad choices. Anyone can go to school here. Anyone can get a job. People only have to do five things to succeed:
1) Stay in school
2) Get and keep a job
3) Stay away from drugs
4) Only have kids you can afford.
5) Abide the law
It's just that simple.
What? Am I entitled to extravagent opulence at the cost of the lives of my fellow humans, at the cost of global suffering? What the fuck!! My dollars give those people JOBS. Without me buying products from them, they would have NOTHING. They would be beggers waiting for hands out. I can not help the fact that the country that they live in do not have the resouces to train these people for highing pay jobs, but by me buying products from them, I'm giving the chance to work towards a better life. That is how trade works.
Do I want to live in a world where the only moral right is get whatever you can without breaking the law? Who the hell said anything about breaking laws? To produce and keep the profit is a freedom entitled to me. By doing so does not break a law. I believe those who break the laws, should be punish. Those who abid by the law, should be rewarded.
Are you selfish? HA!! How much time and money have you give a way? I give homeless people money FREELY. I donate my time FREELY. I donate money to churches and other things I believe in all with FREEWILL. Why do you think that I wish to keep what is mine I'm selfish.
Greedy? Alright. What do I need to live? A hut, grain, and water. Anything more then that could be consider excessive. But do I deserve what I earn? Do I deserve to make the money I make? Let's see here, I currently put in 40-50 hours a week of mind numbing work. I have ever worked 100 hours week. I study for a year and I must keep study to keep my skill up. I have to be friendly to people I don't like. I work hard to keep what I have. I have made good choices. I abide the law. Do I deserve what I have? YOU BETTER BET YOU ASS I DESERVE WHAT I HAVE!!!
You must be talking about the people that just got off the boat, couldn't speak english, and would work for pennies in the late 1800's. What's my answer to that? We have schools, so go there and have the will power to say no to shitty pay.
The corruption of Rome started when the people learned that they could plunder with the voting booth. They shifted their morality of stealing to unmoral leaders to steal from other to give back to the people who voted for them. The people who they elected lacked moral because who would steal but those who have no morals? Thus, these unmoral stealing leaders lead to other corrupt in Rome. The corrupt grew to the army which weaken it. This allowed other armies to walk into Rome with little fighting.
Today, Americans are learning that they can plunder by using the voting booth. They plunder by demanding highest taxes on those with more. Please, if nothing else, understand that statement.
The journey is better then the end.
IMHO, government as a representative of the common interest has every right to impose regulations, if it deems them necessary for the common good. That is what democracy is all about.
Wether the possible expenses caused by these regulations have to be covered by an individual, group or society as a whole and to what extent is a completely different issue and could well differ on a case-by-case basis.
The main point of the article is that common interest should outweigh individual interest. Not always, but it should be more balanced. The articles assessment is that it's currently out of balance favouring (big) corporate interests and I think that assessment is correct.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
Anyone else find fact that this article is copyrighted to be at all funny?