'Son of ACTA' Worse Than Original

An anonymous reader writes "TechDirt has the latest on the leaked US proposals for the 'Son of ACTA' treaty and it looks worse than the original. It's practically a checklist for how to kill innovation while making lawyers rich. In particular, they call for expanding what's patentable, blocking people from buying copyrighted goods in other countries and taking them home, expanding liability for ISPs whose users commit acts of infringement, forcing ISPs to identify their users to anyone on demand, and getting rid of third-party patent review while expanding the presumption that they're valid. The only way it could get any worse would be if it were enacted in law."

Comments

good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where capitalism takes you. By definition, a philosophy based on the rule of the most supremely selfishly rational is going to end up with these people trying to change the law to increase their wealth.

Re:good

[thomasdz]

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. This is the absolute fucking truth. I'm so fucking tired of the anti-capitalists on slashdot. It's the most annoying aspect about the site.

I think you need to sit down with your neighbors in your building's common room, next to the "trouble bush" (fed by the spring) and have a discussion about this... remember the talking stick that we pass around. the more we share, the better our lives are. the more we rid our lives of the scramble for possessions and monetary wealth, the higher we become.

Peace & Love,

Thomas

Re:good

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

"This is where it takes you" is an apt way to put it. I don't think capitalism was ever meant to be a final solution; it was meant to be a steppingstone, and it was far in advance of pre-capitalist systems in terms of the social change it's allowed.

Capitalist means the capital--means of production--are privately held and can be used for private profit. The alternative is capital being held by the state, which is amazingly good at keeping the status quo or responding to clear challenges (invasions, keeping up with the Jones, space race, energy race, etc) but is not nearly nimble enough to drive innovation by random, untested entrepreneurs. There's frankly no way that such people could have driven innovation unless they could could convince The Authority Figure with The Money to give it to them. Now, at worst, they have to convince An Authority figure with Money, but it could be one of hundreds (or maybe thousands or millions, depending on the startup costs).

But it ain't right, because in the end, what do you do when you've beaten the game (to put it in such terms)? If you've ever played a game like Civilization or even one more directly about Just Making Money, you know that eventually you've achieved every achievement and the game just ends. But if that game were your life, what do you do when you no longer have profit to make? Game over don't happen 'til you die.

If you ask me, the people who are doing this shit are (to extend the metaphor unduly) people who've completed the game and are going after every last achievement, even the ones the designers put in there just to be dicks. "Become the leading producers of entertainment worldwide--check. Pass legislation worldwide so that every poor sod worldwide is under your thumb--working on it. Wait... become a tyrant that's destroying the happiness of billions... why do I have this achievement?"

Seriously, they've lost their focus and their minds, and they ought to either be shot or stripped of all money and forbidden from ever engaging in capitalist endeavors again.

Kill'em all

[The Grim Reefer2]

Can we just kill all of the IP lawyers now and be done with it?

Just say'in.

Re:Kill'em all

[Roger Wilcox]

I say we take it one step further and kill all humans. Cleaner and simpler.

Re:Kill'em all

[Archangel Michael]

The Trial Lawyers are a major funding source for Democrats.

Big Corporations are a major funding source for Republicans

Both get what they want, and the Public gets screwed. No surprise there.

Soap boxes aren't working
Ballot boxes aren't working
Ammo boxes are illegal

Now what?

Re:Kill'em all

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I say we take it one step further and kill all humans. Cleaner and simpler.

ha, nice try skynet...

Really? In my head that was Bender's voice.

Beware the simplified summary

[jcrb]

While I hate all this ACTA and related types of laws (DMCA, etc) the summary for this article is not accurate, for example it says it would forbid third party opposition to patents, which it doesn't say, what it actually says is that it prohibits them prior to the grant of a patent. And as someone with a bunch of patents from little startups, thats a good thing actually, as it would be way to easy for big corporations to make small inventors and startups waste money by filling all sorts of third party opposition during the patent prosecution.

In any case, don't believe the summary article, if you care about a particular point follow the links to the full text and read it in the original.

Re:Beware the simplified summary

[h4rr4r]

Holy shit! That was a fucking mess. English translation follows;

No, it will mean that when a big company gets a patent on basically the same damn thing as you, you will be forced to fight about it after the fact in court. This is something most small businesses cannot afford.

Re:Beware the simplified summary

[tony1343]

The America Invents Act which has been passed by the Senate and being considered by the House of Representatives actually introduces a new post-grant opposition procedure to invalidate patents.

Definitely beware of the summary; it's wholly inaccurate. Unfortunately, that's usually the case when reporters report on legal statutes, bills, treaties, etc. Although, there are some good ones out there.

Re:Beware the simplified summary

[NoSig]

The main problem of patents is not the difficulty of getting them, it is the damage they cause for everyone other than the person holding the patent. There is no reason to think the process before would be more lengthy and the uncertainty is the same. On the contrary the process before could be shorter by making procedures at the patent office that make that possible, while re-arranging the courts is more difficult. Consider taking your thinking to the extreme of letting everyone grant themselves patents on anything and then having to duke it out in court to defend these self-signed patents. Patents wouldn't be worth anything until they were defended, except as a means to threaten people. It is the same problem with patents today, just less so. We need less patents not more patents. It is a tiny step in the right direction to make patents harder to get within the existing laws. We don't need more 1-click patents.

Everything can be copyrighted!

[vrmlguy]

blocking people from buying copyrighted goods in other countries and taking them home

Things that can be copyrighted: Books, nicknacks, travel brochures, the pattern on my boxers... Not only will you have to strip naked for the TSA, you'll have to remain naked while crossing national borders.

Re:Everything can be copyrighted!

[Culture20]

Things that can be copyrighted: Books, nicknacks, travel brochures, the pattern on my boxers...

"Sir, this skidmark is clearly derivative."
"Um, Parody?"

Re:Everything can be copyrighted!

[MoonBuggy]

I'm expecting to see selective enforcement - those running the show won't piss off too many members of the public because it risks backlash (and they're not on such firm 'scare tactic' footing as the TSA are, so they have more to fear from public disapproval), but they'll pull out the clause any time arbitrageurs look to take advantage of an absurd regional price difference in copyrighted goods. End result, of course, is that while the employers take advantage of cheap global labour, any disparity in goods prices can't be taken advantage of by the consumer because the identical, but lower priced foreign goods can't be imported without the permission of the copyright holder. Even without this law, we're seeing exactly that behaviour in Omega v. Costco.

Re:Everything can be copyrighted!

[Anthony Mouse]

Things that can be copyrighted: Books, nicknacks, travel brochures, the pattern on my boxers... Not only will you have to strip naked for the TSA, you'll have to remain naked while crossing national borders.

Forget about the logistics. That's just the collateral damage. The real issue is that it enables price discrimination. Which makes the US and other countries with a high standard of living even more uncompetitive by compounding the cost advantage of foreign countries: Foreign students will get our textbooks for 5% of the US price, which means they have even lower costs and can more easily undercut our wages. Corporations license software in foreign countries for 5% of the US price, making it more cost effective to set up shop Anywhere But Here. On and on.

Re:Everything can be copyrighted!

[currently_awake]

Problems: I go to Europe on business and buy a T-shirt. I go home, but at the airport they stop me for trying to import a copyrighted work without permission. I buy a T-shirt at home and try to go to Europe on business, get stopped at airport because someone else has the exclusive on sales in Europe. In this world it will be impossible to travel without breaking the law. The problem they are trying to stop is mail order shops in china selling dvd's to north america at $1 each or buying Gucci bags in a poor country dirt cheap and re-selling them in america for half price, but this is massive overkill for that end. The only fair course of action is to limit copyright to COMMERCIAL activity. Importing stuff for personal use fine but you can't sell it.

Re:Everything can be copyrighted!

[Anthony Mouse]

This comment incorrectly assumes the the US Trade Representative in any way gives a shit about the American people.

Quite right. And it is for this very reason that I would at this time like to formally request that the US Trade Representative die in a fire.

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[0123456]

Yes, if they flip flop, like they did in the 1800s, switch sides. But RIGHT NOW Republican == BAD.

And there I was thinking that Democrats had run the US government for the last two years.

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[trollertron3000]

Do you know much about how DC works? Seriously I lived there my whole life and I'm tied to the US Federal government closely. I think it's hilarious that people like yourself think there's a huge difference between the two parties. Guess the bullshit machines are working.

Protectionism

[HermMunster]

No true free economy allows laws that protect certain markets and business models. Obama is up to his ears in jobs loss. As a consequence these MPAA/RIAA lobbyists go to him claiming that they are loosing billions and millions of jobs in an industry that "can't" be off-shored--nothing like American movies and music.

What's wrong is that he thinks that these efforts will result in recovery of lost jobs and income. In reality, when the economy recovers, if it ever does, these industries (with their protected and outdated business models) will be in control beyond what was intended, and it will have set a precedent for other industries to try the same thing, thus leaving America, and the world, with massive abusive businesses controlling ever more of Congress.

This is *NOT* capitalism

[mangu]

Having the government make laws to give privileges to a selected few is absolutely not what capitalism is about.

This is FEUDALISM.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[extraordinaire]

Interesting how the students who went to school with that character described him as an "extreme leftist." The notion that the fellow was a Ron Paul supporter was completely debunked mere minutes after Keith Olbermann and crew tried to tie him to it.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[istartedi]

Ron Paul has no new ideas. He just wants to take us on a trip down memory lane, back to the preconditions that got us here in the first place.

We need a Theodore Roosevelt (trust buster) not a Ron Paul. And as I put my hand to my face, shield it from the blinding Sun and scan the horizon of the Fruited Plain, I see no Rough Rider coming to save us.

We will have to do it ourselves, somehow.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[hairyfeet]

Actually capitalism is nearing its end, whether the 1%ers like it or not, simply because technology kills capitalism dead in the long run, there is simply no escaping that fact. I'm sure some will say "capitalism and tech go great together!" but this ignores a simple truth: The entire premise of capitalism is trading labor for capital but what happens when that labor is no longer valuable?

I'd say probably half the USA population isn't qualified and will never be for anything that can't be done better by a machine, and each year the musical chairs that is "jobs not able to be done better by machine" will shrink smaller and smaller. So we either come up with "make work" to give an excuse to cut these people a check, have massive unemployment and underemployment which will eventually lead to a tipping point and massive civil unrest, or we find a new way (perhaps resource based) to do things.

After all who thinks it would be hard to automate a McDonald's? The service industry will be the next to go and for many that is all that is left. So the 1%ers better enjoy their time in the sun, because those peasants won't just go quietly starve to death. Technology makes the worker pointless, and by sticking with capitalism you just make sure that now unemployed worker won't have any way to take care of themselves. Like delivering mail on horseback the capitalist way of trading labor for money is simply a dead end.

As for TFA it is a perfect example, an attempt for the old money buggy whip manufacturers to hang onto their business model in the face of technology. Whatever idiot thought the USA could survive as an "IP based economy" really should be shot, as you are trying to force scarcity into a medium where none exists. They spend ever more money on ever more draconian laws to prop up a dying business model. Countries like China aren't gonna give a shit about your "IP based economy" when they can keep their money and just make copies, so you get a "giant sucking sound" where all the money goes out and never comes back.

So until they wake up and smell the fail and start working on new business strategies that take the abundance and ease of propagation into effect they are just wasting their money. More and more of the population simply doesn't play your reindeer games anymore, so what are you gonna do? unplug the planet?

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[Anthony Mouse]

those peasants won't just go quietly starve to death.

No, but bread is cheap and so are circuses.

Negative income tax pretty much solves all of capitalism's problems. You set the lowest (negative) tax bracket such that no matter how little money you make, you can afford to eat and pay rent on a very small apartment. Then nobody needs to work to not starve, but you still need to work if you want a car or a house or to send your kids to a decent school.

And people want those things enough to work for them, but not enough to riot over not having them. So if you can find a job, good for you. And if you can't, enjoy your government cheese.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[the Dragonweaver]

I know that at least one buggy whip manufacturer saw the writing on the wall and went into another braided-cord technology—high test fishing line. You know, for swordfish and other large sea game. They're still around, and tout this change on their website.

So technology gets rid of jobs and doesn't replace them? You say this on a website, created by people on software created by people on hardware designed and built by people. You do this with your computer which was designed by people and assembled by robots which were designed by people.

Heck, my job as a Photoshop manipulator for a photography studio didn't exist ten years ago.

In other words, you may want to rethink your premise.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[Anthony Mouse]

Sure low income housing but, what happens when your government cheese runs out? The US gets it's "government cheese" in the form of Social Security and Medicare but the major funding for that relies on the working middle class. If the only industries left were jobs are obtainable disappear (like the grandparent post mentioned the service industry) there goes Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security was designed by a bunch of politicians (and I use that term as a pejorative) who were more concerned with doing what was politically necessary to get it passed, and then making it as difficult as possible to ever repeal, than actually doing something sensible or sustainable. The structure of social security tax is ridiculous and the idea that people who have more money should get bigger government checks is preposterous. They started out paying benefits to people who never paid in, meaning that the entire thing is a ponzi scheme that was destined from the start to go bankrupt as soon as a population bubble like the baby boomers reached the retirement age. It desperately needs to be scrapped and replaced with a negative income tax.

As for idea that there won't be anyone to tax to pay for the government cheese, it doesn't work that way. The more things get automated and require less labor to produce, the less they cost. Imagine the ultimate conclusion: Literally everything is fully automated, so that there are zero jobs for anyone. At this point you don't have to pay the machine to produce it, or pay the machine that produces the first machine's inputs, ad infinitum. There is no one left in the chain to collect a paycheck. Provided that the owner of the production equipment is not a monopoly, that means the competitive price for all goods will be approximately the marginal cost of production -- zero. So no problems supplying food there; it's free.

Of course, that's communist fairyland and will never actually happen. But suppose we get half way there. So things are 50% automated, i.e. only 50% of people have to work in order to produce all the goods and services for 100% of everyone. In that case, things should cost approximately 50% of what they would cost if it required 100% of people to produce the same stuff. But look at what that means: If you can have e.g. a 20% tax rate and buy bread for everyone when bread costs $1 and everyone is employed, what tax rate do you need if you can only tax 50% of people because everyone else is unemployed, but at the same time bread now only costs $0.50? It's still a 20% tax rate. And that works for any employment percentage you want to plug in -- if you automate and that causes unemployment, you also reduce the cost of goods and services by the same amount, which thereby reduces cost of living and therefore the amount the government needs to provide to cover it.

It does, of course, suck for whoever loses their job -- they still get to eat, but they can no longer afford e.g. a car. And you have to raise taxes more if automation comes to other industries to a greater extent than it comes to agriculture, but that isn't likely -- in general agriculture is easy to automate.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[Ltap]

I second this. I am reminded of the Edison quote, "I will make electricity so cheap, only the rich will burn candles." The cheap excuse

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[roman_mir]

Capitalism is not 'trading capital for labor', this is so silly.

Capitalism is saving and (re)investing. Exactly what is the money (re)invested into is irrelevant, as long as it's actual savings, and not some government subsidy.

Capitalism is of-course about organizing tools/labor/possibly land in order to make profit, but those things (tools/labor/land) can be used interchangeably, it doesn't really have to be labor, it doesn't have to be manual labor, it doesn't have to be human labor either.

As to 'what people will be doing' - I bet there were questions just like this one 200 years ago when first capitalists were organizing tools (steam engines, machines), land (factory floors) and labor (workers, engineers, management, etc.) in a way that allowed producing more machines, which eventually removed the need for 95% of human farmers, and only 5% of farmers were needed to feed 100% of population.

What would those 95% of people do?

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[SuricouRaven]

That only works when the number of jobs that are needed exceeds the number of people wanting jobs. A little lower is acceptable. But a lot lower and it all breaks down - it doesn't matter if you've got five university degrees if there just isn't a job to be had, and when one does open up thousands of people apply.

Re:This is *NOT* capitalism

[SuricouRaven]

I have no idea what a negative income tax is, but it sounds a bit like a basic income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee

The math doesn't really work for extreme levels of unemployment, but it could delay the 'automation apocolypse' for a time and at least keep people out of poverty.

while making lawyers rich

[nurb432]

When you run the world, you craft everything to support your wealth.

Brasil, Russia, China doesnt give two shits

[unity100]

While india doesnt join the talks. europe is against 75% of the core of the proposed crap. this kinda takes away approx ~5 billion population of the planet.

this entire piece of shit, is something the rich in usa is trying to push over entire world for their own benefit.

yet noone cares. yet, they still come yelping louder, after they have been openly refused.

Re:Brasil, Russia, China doesnt give two shits

[unity100]

well, european parliament had basically banned anything that would resemble the terms of acta treaty :

http://votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=456&lang=en

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[unity100]

to quote user 'samanta wright', just under this post :

Perhaps you haven't seen the breakdown of seats in the US Congress lately?

Re:Enforcing is suicide

[White Flame]

It doesn't have to be enforced to be "valuable" to the government or media companies. All this means is that everybody, everywhere, even more so if this passes, is always committing a crime, and therefore the .gov and private business have the right to all your info and can smash down on any individual they please, even/especially for unrelated "crimes".

What world do you live in?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "final" fix, and there can never be one. The wealthy and powerful *always* have incentives to exploit the majority for their personal gain, and *always* respond to those incentives with measures like this.

The right response is to forever fight.

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[Archangel Michael]

No, they forget that the Trial Lawyers (wing of the D party) are also involved. This is not a (D) or (R) issue, this is a DC corrupt issue. Both (D) and (R) have the proverbial blood on their hands.

Stop trying to spread your s*t

[spyfrog]

Could you Americans please stop trying to force us other in the world to accept your fascist corporations wishes?
Please continue to live in your corporate govern country that you believe is the worlds greatest democracy but STOP trying to force us other to obey your corporate overlords.

Thanks.

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[misexistentialist]

Haven't you bought most of our corporations by now?

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[vadim_t]

Our Government. and Corporations are.

Well, and whose fault is that? I thought you had elections

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[KeithIrwin]

I wish we could. The fact of the matter is that large sections of our government are now out of the control of the citizenry. They do what the corporations tell them to with no regard for what the people say unless you can get truly massive protests mobilized. The problem is money. If a politician does what a corporation wants, he can count on them supporting him rather than his opponent in the next election. If they do what an individual voter wants, that individual might still vote for his opponent because individuals care about a range of issues. Pleasing an individual on one issue does not guarantee support. But each corporation only cares about a very few specific issues which affect their bottom line. So if you do them a favor, you can count on their support (and if they support you, you can count on being asked to do them a favor to continue to get their support). They also can now legally donate substantially more money than most political groups can afford to in order to promote their agenda. Put this together and politicians answer almost exclusively to the needs of the corporations rather than the citizenry, especially when it comes to issues like intellectual property on which most citizens are completely uneducated (see also other complex legal issues like tort reform, environmental regulation, product safety, financial regulation, federal mineral-rights leases, etc.). Then they use the force of the US government to try to ram this down the throats of everyone else.

I'd gladly vote for someone who claimed that they were going to do something about this (and, in fact, I did when I voted for Obama), but almost no one who's gotten elected in the last several decades has even tried to do anything about this and it certainly hasn't been a campaign issue. If, in twenty or thirty years, we look back and wonder why America no longer has the world's strongest economy, this will be why: because a slow erosion of public control of the government has replaced most effective governance and regulation with a system where the highest bidder and/or the shrewdest power broker gets to craft laws and regulations to their own benefit and everyone else's detriment. An economy where those are the rules is going to become a struggling economy once the existing inertia and capital are no longer sufficient to sustain it.

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[Bob9113]

> Could you Americans please stop trying to force us other in the world to accept your fascist corporations wishes?

With every fiber of my being I wish that what you are saying was rational. Unfortunately, we Americans are no longer represented by our government.

We decried the Bush / Neo-Con oligopoly, and forced its heir-apparent, John McCain, to try a crazy stunt called Sarah Palin as a mad grasp for electability.

We have used the soap box.

We voted for Obama, the one who promised change. Who promised net neutrality, the end of Gitmo, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, public participation in the construction of the health care law, and a shift away from secret government in general.

We have used the ballot box.

We have brought lawsuits that have been quashed by secret national security objections. We have brandished the forces of the EFF and Groklaw to fight the courtroom battles, attempting to hold the line, in vain.

We have used the jury box.

I have deeply considered what the above statements imply. I have contemplated the LA, the Fruitvale riots, and the current events in Wisconsin. I have lay awake at night stunned at the implication of these things.

The path forward is a scary one. For me, I cannot accept it as it seems to be. I have chosen to believe that it is a failure to use the first three boxes sufficiently. Given that I cannot see how ballot or jury can overcome their state of decay, I am left with the soap box.

This post is an example. I have a lot to learn. The barriers ahead look insurmountable. And the only sure way to fail is not to try.

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[houghi]

Look at your constitution. It has a way out. The question is if you are willing to die for your ideals, like the people in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries are willing to do.

I think not. You have bread and games. (To be fair, the same is true for most of Europe.)

Re:Stop trying to spread your s*t

[JockTroll]

Ah, yes, the "most powerful military forces" that have not been able to defeat the alibans in 10 years? Those "powerful military forces" who were sent packing from Somalia? I'm quaking in my slippers. The "corporations" may have tanks (doubtful) but they're key people are PEOPLE and they are vulnerable to bullets. Of course, you're just making the same excuse: "it's impossible, they have already won, so I don't have to do anything".

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[Svartalf]

For want of mod points... You beat me to that- and it's the truth of things.

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[Archangel Michael]

So, what you're saying is that in the last 5 years, the (D) party was completely helpless in drafting Legislation. How do you expect me to believe that when the rammed a turd of Health Care Reform through in just a few months?

Gaaahhhhhh

The sad thing is, you're so stupid that you think you're smart for saying it. Don't get me wrong, the (R) will screw things up when they get their chance. It just swings from (D) to (R) and few people see that both are ruining our country.

Re:Big surprise

[FriendlyLurker]

Good old Overton Window, good for treaties too. People will be so shocked at how far this new proposal goes, that they will be happy to bend over and take the original "moderate" version of ACTA.

Re:They haven't

[cayenne8]

Obama had a lot of great stuff on the table until he lost Congress.

You know..I was laughing at all of this...till it dawned on me...you are really and truly serious and believe this, don't you?

:(

I can't honestly think of a single thing that guy has done positive for the country...even when he had majority in BOTH houses...I'm just hoping that he's a one termer...before he can do more damage.

Kettle meet Pot

[TheP4st]

RTFA then read this

Ok

[Sycraft-fu]

Then let's hear your better system. I don't think anyone except for maybe crazy libertarians claim capitalism is perfect, or the be-all, end-all of economic systems. However so far nobody has come up with anything better. Communism sounds nice on paper but doesn't work in the real world.

You'll notice that capitalism underlies the economy of all successful, well off, countries in the world. Now that doesn't mean it can or should be implemented without any checks, clearly all capitalist nations have counterbalances to it but the fundamentals of capitalism are what underlie their systems because it works.

So, let's hear it then. You clearly think capitalism ought to go away right now which implies you have something better. Let's hear what that as, as we'd all be interested in a genuinely better economic system. Do your homework first though, because a lot of them have been tried and failed.

However I'm going to guess you do not in fact have a good answer since you clearly don't know what you are talking about. The reason is that these things being proposed are actually ANTI-capitalist. In a true free market, there are no artificial restrictions of any kinds. So buying goods over seas and selling them for a profit at home is 100% kosher (it's called arbitrage and is common). As such if you think these are bad, then really you are being pro-capitalist as it stands.

Re:Ok

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason is that these things being proposed are actually ANTI-capitalist.

You're thinking too idealistically. The capitalist philosophy inevitably leads to crony capitalism. You need a philosophy centred around something other than rational selfishness and regulated accordingly.

Social democracy is an obvious answer, and has worked quite well in Europe in the sense that it gives people a good quality of life rather than in the sense of economic summary statistics suggesting that a country is doing well.

Degrees of socialism - in the sense of worker control of the means of production managed by a sympathetic state - helped much of Europe emerge from WW2 on both sides of the Curtain. Soviet Russia was throroughly successful for most of its life, being America's only equal for most of the last century. The response to resource allocation difficulties which had emerged by the early '80s was to dismantle the socialist framework and waste money on Reagan's arms race - this wasn't the only option. The West has just had a far greater hit to its economy and we didn't respond by entirely abandoning free market principles: we have just temporarily "socialised" elements of banking and industry.

As for communism in the sense defined by Marx, it's never been reached. There are lots of successful independent worker cooperatives - the John Lewis Partnership being one of the most famous in the UK - which give some idea of what worker control of the means of production without state management looks like.

The point being that there are lots of alternatives to a capitalist philosophy, many features of which are currently in use.

Re:Ok

[Gibbs-Duhem]

I wish I could find the original research done into these alternative systems, but I don't seem to be able to find the articles (and, well, don't care enough to try to find them).

My favorite concept from these was that as technology causes individual humans to be more efficient, there should be less labor requirement. For instance, if the use of a tractor makes a human 10 times as efficient in harvesting food, then you should need to employ 1/10th as many people. Ignoring the second-order correction from the tractor manufacturer (who is improved by more robots and more robots and so on), as technology makes us more efficient, it is *natural* that we would work less.

The failure of capitalism here is that if you *don't* work your 40 hours a week, you don't get enough money to eat. However, society doesn't actually *need* people to work that 40 hours a week to accomplish everything that needs doing. So what you end up with is people employed who are doing essentially useless tasks, and who essentially spend their time increasing the complexity of the bureaucratic system without adding efficiency. Quite literally, many of these people consume more resources in getting to work and "working" than they produce. I am sure everyone knows these people.

Wouldn't society be better off if these people just *stayed the heck home* and did something that they were even remotely passionate about, and might someday even become good at instead of slowing those of us who actually naturally enjoy being productive down? Maybe that's art, or music, or cooking, or caring for kids, or who knows what. But at least they'll be doing *something*.

So, the proposals to deal with this messy transitional period between an industrial and post-industrial economy was to basically provide enough of a welfare safety net that if people didn't want to work, they didn't need to do so in order to live a satisfying (if frugal) life. Meanwhile, people have a standard economy on top of that for other items -- so people can spend all their time being musicians and actually maybe even become good at it -- without having to worry about starving in the interim. I guess you could say it's sort of half way between socialist and capitalist? It's really neither. It's capitalist in the sense that the free market is clearly there and providing incentives to produce value. On the other hand, the free market is limited to "luxury" items beyond the base necessities that people need.

Now, I'm not saying I necessarily think this would work -- I, like many, am inclined to believe that people are not as good as I would hope. On the other hand, maybe that's only because we treat them that way? I'd certainly love to believe that if you give people security in their food and shelter, they'll be a lot more likely to adventure in doing more productive things with their time. Or maybe they'll just shoot heroin in the back alley.

BUT, the big issue remains. Our current system is designed to rapidly increase efficiency, but not give people more free time to balance it out. Certainly most of us feel that we are working as many hours as ever we were, even if the amount of work we can accomplish in a week hasn't really changed much (exceptions exist, of course, especially in computers). If our efficiency is 10 times higher than it was in 1920, then our EMPLOYMENT rate should be only 10%! Yes, 90% unemployment is a perfectly natural state for a post-industrial society! Why else do we have robot maids and trains if not to make it so that we can spend our time doing things we are more passionate about like.........

Anyway, just wanted to throw that out as food for thought. Capitalism is all well and good, but there seems to need to be some fine tuning at the unproductive bottom of the capitalist food chain if we want to improve the value of our society. After all, as John F. Kennedy said in 1968:

"Our gross national product ... counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[rsilvergun]

The Health Care Reform bill isn't a Democrat bill. It's a Republican bill the Democrats surrendered to because they wussed out when they lost Congress. The Republicans proposed the same lousy bill when Clinton tried to socialize medicine. It's a Red Herring. A bad bill the Republicans can blame on the democrats while secretly loving every minute of it (it's free money for the insurance lobby).

The Democrats want to socialize health care in America. Just like every other first world nation on the planet. They've given up on it because the were out spent, out maneuvered and just plain scared.

The world is a complicated place. It's too complicated to waste time bandying about words like 'stupid'. Do some reading on Mother Jones and the Daily Kos. Just about everything is verifiable and true (I admit, Daily Kos sometimes embellishes, but Mother Jones is solid Journalism). Read rotten.com and fark.com. Read the independent press. And remember, the corporations are coming for you're livelihood and your middle class lifestyle. Good luck, you're going to need it.

Re:I think the politicians have just run out of id

[triffid_98]

Any politician not vetted by the party majority faces at best non-stop ridicule, and generally just gets no mention whatsoever in the news media.

Ross Perot had some good ideas too. He was kind of a nutjob, but at least he recognized we couldn't keep borrowing money from China forever...

the only way?

[bananaquackmoo]

"The only way it could get any worse would be if it were enacted in law." You either have no imagination, or no trust in our overlords ability to screw us...

You go first

[next_ghost]

I really hope that US government is going to implement this back home before they try to impose it on the rest of the world. If they do, I'm pretty sure that US hi-tech industry will collapse long before they manage to push it through here in Europe.

Kills right to resale?

[shutdown -p now]

Article 4, paragraph 3:

Each Party shall provide to authors, performers, and producers of phonograms the right to authorize or prohibit the making available to the public of the original and copies of their works, performances, and phonograms through sale or other transfer of ownership.

I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but it sounds like they don't want to let you resale things? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Big surprise

[flyneye]

Good gun nuts are hard to find.
My case in point; Sirhan Sirhan now cant even recall a good shot he took.
Oswald was a nut, but I figure the one behind the grassy knoll had some gun savvy.
On the other hand bad gun nuts end up shooting Lennon instead of Yoko.

Re:I know I'll get marked troll again...

[Rockoon]

In both the Senate and the House, only 1 republican voted for the healthcare bill. Thats it. 1 republican.

All that wheeling and dealing that destroyed any real semblance of a decent healthcare bill was done to get enough Democrats on board, not Republicans. Let me repeat.. only 1 republican voted for the healthcare bill.

It is no surprise why the Democrats want so desperately to blame the healthcare bill on the Republicans.. what is surprising is people like you, that believe them when they say it.

Re:FDR???

[istartedi]

You're just trolling, right? Theodore Roosevelt is not FDR. Note, he was a man of his time, and some of his words, particularly on race are abhorrent now. In the area to which I refered previously, he was spot-on and I believe he is turning in his grave.

Tell that to the Arabs

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yeah, bread and circusses are cheap and the oil rich nations of the world can certainly afford to spend plenty. So why exactly are the oil rich Arab nations on fire? Lack of money? Really? Libya should be rolling in it.

Greed is all consuming. Why settle for a mere 10 billion if you can have a hundred by bleeding the people just a bit more? If Ghadaffi or whatever he is called had spend most of his fortune on buying bread and circusses and maybe an industry or two he would still be filthy rich and far more popular. But he didn't. Squeezed the country to the max until it broke. People are fighting tanks with what they can get hold off. That means bread and circusses completely failed.

And you are a fool if you think this can't happen in the west. Just see how easily Greece and Ireland fell. See the riots in London by students. Gosh, students rebel in Egypt, the english government applauds. Students rebel in London, shame!

Do you think that when Antionette said "let them eat cake" she saw the true problems in society? You can't see a revolution brewing until it boils over. If you could, people would do more to stop them.

There is no better system

[SmallFurryCreature]

Once you get a little bit older you might learn the secret of it all. It is that there is no perfect cure all system. The only thing that works long term, as in your life time, is to constantly find a balance while never actually achieving it.

This is not how people like to think, they want the hero to save the world at the end of the movie. Not spend infinity just avoiding total collapse.

In running a country, there is no end, no financial year, no last chapter. It is an ongoing concern that needs to readjust as the world changes.

Should high-tech firms receive a tax deduction to stimulate them? Yes... we need them to stimulate the economy.

Time passes...

Should high-tech firms receive a tax deduction to stimulate them? No... we got them, now their taxes can help to stimulate other sectors.

See what I did there? I changed a policy as the situation changed. How DARING of me!!! This is what most political parties with an ideology never do. Right - Left, it don't matter. Leave it to a republican and taxes for the rich would go to negative infinity. Leave it to Amnesty International and criminals would be out of jail before they commit the crime. Leave it to the green and humanity would be living on a very small isolated rock less it touch any piece of nature. Leave it to the Libertarians and we would have Somalia.

When you see Thatchet claim that the lady is not for turning, she shows just how bad a politician she was. Ruined the country.

Compromise? Yes, that is one word for it but really it is the realization that the needs of the country cannot be expressed by the needs of a singular group.

We need labour, we need high-tech, we need investors, we need rich people, we need poor people, we need unemployed...

Wait, what? We need unemployed? Yes, we do. Where else is a growing company going to get new people from? 0% unemployment is a nightmare for capitalists who know what they are talking about. Can you say salary inflation? Can you say stagnation?

So you might want to turn off the work stimulation projects BEFORE everyone actually got a job before you run out of people for the jobs. Immigration has proven to be less then an ideal method for solving this and once you got immigration going, it is hard to stop leading to masses of unemployed immigrants.

In politics you can never win because the game never ends. At best you can try to keep the ball somewhat under control. This means you got to shift back and forth on the same issue over and over. Do we build a nuclear plant? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? Yes, now it is a good idea.

ACTA seeks to create a cure all with no room for changes in the future. That is why it is bad. The patent system might need to be reformed now AND be reformed again in the future. And again. And again. The idea that you can draft a trade law NOW and be done with it forever and ever is just a silly idea that sadly seems ingrained in our conciousness. If only we did X all our problems would be solved forever. Nope.