Slashdot Mirror
'Americans Own Less Stuff, and That's Reason To Be Nervous' (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg's Tyler Cowen writes about "the erosion of personal ownership and what that will mean for our loyalties to traditional American concepts of capitalism and private property." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares the report: The main culprits for the change are software and the internet. For instance, Amazon's Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americans consume text. Fifteen years ago, people typically owned the books and magazines they were reading. Much less so now. If you look at the fine print, it turns out that you do not own the books on your Kindle. Amazon.com Inc. does. I do not consider this much of a practical problem. Although Amazon could obliterate the books on my Kindle, this has happened only in a very small number of cases, typically involving account abuse. Still, this licensing of e-books, instead of stacking books on a shelf, has altered our psychological sense of how we connect to what we read -- it is no longer truly "ours."
The change in our relationship with physical objects does not stop there. We used to buy DVDs or video cassettes; now viewers stream movies or TV shows with Netflix. Even the company's disc-mailing service is falling out of favor. Music lovers used to buy compact discs; now Spotify and YouTube are more commonly used to hear our favorite tunes. Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of training for future entrepreneurship. We're hardly at a point where American property has been abolished, but I am still nervous that we are finding ownership to be so inconvenient.
The change in our relationship with physical objects does not stop there. We used to buy DVDs or video cassettes; now viewers stream movies or TV shows with Netflix. Even the company's disc-mailing service is falling out of favor. Music lovers used to buy compact discs; now Spotify and YouTube are more commonly used to hear our favorite tunes. Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of training for future entrepreneurship. We're hardly at a point where American property has been abolished, but I am still nervous that we are finding ownership to be so inconvenient.
I do research on obscure, Latin literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Back when owning physical books was the only way to read, I would have had to travel to European libraries to do research. Today I do it from home in America via HathiTrust and Google. Electronic books have opened up access to centuries of literature that had been lost to neglect.
Where's the actual article? The link in the headline has nothing to do with the quoted text. All the articles listed are just about Chinese economic activity.
If you scroll down, the article under discussion is linked to here.
How about some actual moderation, slashdot...?
"Crony capitalism" is a misnomer. Nobody has to give favorable treatment to their cronies for property-owners to exploit non-property-owners. That's just capitalism. That's what capitalism is: a market distorted in favor of those who own capital.
What you call "crony capitalism" is just capitalism. What you call "capitalism" is just a free market. A free market where capital is widely distributed in a decentralized way, not held by one class of people to the exploitation of another, is market socialism. "Socialism" doesn't mean everything is controlled by the state, it means capital is owned by the people. Widespread individual ownership by many people still counts; it doesn't have to (and shouldn't) be collective ownership through the state.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I'll keep my shelves full of books and my AR-15 to protect them.
Thank you, and drive through.
I wish that I could mod you crazy but you do have a bit of a point here. Read Robert Heinlein's take on the future at his most cynical level of red neck inspired madness in Farnham's Freehold. For instance in the plot he has the son of the hero redneck book hording evangelist castrated.
I know guns don't kill people etcetera on and on until they all go bang for real and end our propensity for hording as well as the insanity of consumerism run amok. Faults which causes in the primitive species Homo sapiens the penchant for partaking in wars of acquisition rather than the potlatches we were once commanded to have. As the plane worshiping tribes of the south pacific once said of us westerners "the airplane people carry too much cargo and that is why they are crazy and kill each other"
However everything is going to be fine, our species replacements are all safe and sound under area 51 waiting for the storm to pass. The reliable and humane gray aliens are completely in control and in charge of the operation to rid the planet of the plague of primitive Homo sapiens. FYI our replacements are a very hairy peaceful race of vegetarians that have life spans measured in the of thousands of years. They were seen infrequently in the mountains and wooded places all over this planet until very recently. So rest assured your AR-15 might come in useful very soon.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
You seem to be the first commenter to notice that. Guess no-one prior wanted to read the article?
Go out and buy books, buy CDs and DVDs, buy the very things the author complains you no longer own.
Yes, your OS isn't yours, and your phone is welded shut (as are Macs in general), but there is nothing stopping someone from going out and buying a physical product.
But instead of doing this there will be those who will whine about the loss ownership.
Americans, in particular, younger Americans, own less stuff because they are poorer. And they are poorer because half a century of progressive politics has transferred the wealth they should have been earning into the hands of crony capitalists, political elites, and government employees.
Unfortunately, many younger Americans still believe that the answer to the government destroying their futures is to vote for more government and more taxes. Fortunately, more and more seem to be figuring out what's actually going on.
You can take books from the library for free. No need to own them. It has come to the point where people think its fine to rent everything In lice and own nothing. The big corps aren't helping because they like this arrangement. Xbox is a prime example. My kids ask me to buy a game online cause the want I stant gratification. But I say no let's buy an actual copy. When the powers and internet out for 7 days its nice to have some DVDs and games to play when the generator is running
Better still, reading ebooks you actually own.
Why? I rarely read a book twice. Reference books are handy to own.
As the other commenter said, your definitions have nothing to do with any standard use of these terms and everything to do with your personal screed.
What they're calling "crony capitalism" is not just capitalism; indeed it may be said not to be capitalist at all. The entire point of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which launched capitalism as an economic policy, was to oppose mercantilism - the system where the government granted special rights and benefits to particular companies to attempt to increase the government's power - by pointing out that such favors were not only unethical but also tended to impoverish the nation. From every problem with IP law (Eldred v Ashcroft, the patent mess, etc) to the closed-door 'tax incentive' discussions between cities and large corporations, there are a thousand ways in which people who sit on corporate boards or Chambers of Commerce or legislative bodies purport to support capitalism but actually work against a legally level playing field.
Rent is not a market distortion. Your ideal of socialism and your notions of class are a century out of date as well as far removed from reality.
The closest thing to what you're calling "market socialism" is called distributivism. Many bright people have thought about the problems of centralization but no one has found a practicable or just way to put real correctives into practice.
I have a friend who had a massive DVD collection and a really nice home theater setup. When he bought a DVD that he would plan on watching again in a short time span, he would rip it losslessly to another DVD (this was before massive, cheap hard drives.) He would set up the new DVD to only have the movie with the best soundtrack, and *nothing* else. You pop the DVD in and the movie starts immediately. No trailers, no menus, no ads, no warnings.
The sad thing is he had to technically break the law to get something he owned into a format he wanted it in. He wasn't stealing anything or infringing on anyone's IP, he just wanted to watch what he payed for without wasting time.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Reading books is much more important than owning them. EBooks eliminates waste.
Owning DVDs doesn't strike me as an important thing in life.
Still, despite these two things, I own a crapload of stuff.
Did you know that there has been a trend to reduce or even eliminate the savings that you, as a consumer, could realize by buying the electronic book as opposed to the physical one, despite how much more waste making and selling physical books creates?
When I asked a customer service rep at a company that shall remain namelesz, why in some cases the phsycial book is CHEAPER, NEW than the ebook when this retailer sells both, the response I got was that people are still buying physical books. (Inasmuch as that's not really an explanation why something that by rights SHOULD be cheaper ISN'T,) I replied with something like, "but... don't you have to pay the same royalties on both, based on intellectual property, but NOT have to pay to print the book itself, nor pay for the physical storage space of each in warehouses, on trucks, and ultimately on bookshelves in actual, brick-and-mortar stores whenever you start opening those for books, for the electronic books you DO sell? Why not make it easer to buy THOSE?"
The response I got basically was that they make more money pricing them this way, so this is the way they price them. (Sigh.)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
For the few pieces of media I want to own, I get a digital version, and I'm done. No extra piece of plastic in my house, nothing had to be manufactured or transported, and I still get to enjoy it.
You get to enjoy it until something happens to the DRM server, then like that South Park meme, ...and it's gone!
I have a bunch of paid iOS games that died during the 32-bit purge. It's a bit ironic that I can fire up Windows XP under VMware and play Worms Armageddon (which I bought almost two decades ago), but my copy of UNO (yup, the card game) for iOS has gone to Apple's digital graveyard.
Don't even get me started on Netflix removing content. It was what finally motivated me to set up my own server at home, and bought Fire Sticks to run Kodi, for each TV. Content providers can shove their "kill switch" up their ass.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
This becomes most clear when we try to discuss anarchism. Not to argue for or against it, but just to talk about what it is and how it relates to other ideas.
Most anarchists would say that anarchism is inherently socialist, and that capitalism is wholly incompatible with anarchism. What they mean by that is that in an anarchic society, ownership would necessarily be widespread, because if it was concentrated in just a few hands then those few owners would effectively rule everyone else so it couldn't be anarchy.
Anarcho-capitalists on the other hand would say that anarcho-socialism is a contradiction in terms because by "socialism" they mean "command economy" which you can't have without a state obviously. Instead they would insist that anarchy must inherently be "capitalist", by which they means "free market", because with no state there's obviously nobody to control the market.
Thing is, the anarcho-socialists were there first. (Before the anarcho-capitalists, and before Marxist style socialists too). And in their use of the words, they can and do say that market capitalism is possible, state socialism is possible, and state capitalism is possible, and they are against all of them, especially the last one. Anarcho-capitalists on the other hand, like the state socialists they oppose and everyone on the line in between them, cannot even comprehend what "anarcho-socialism" or "state capitalism" would mean, because their use of language has become so degraded that they don't even have adequate words for ideas.
It's the same reason that the modern "right" think fascism is "left". Fascism is state capitalism, but they think statism = socialism and so cannot even see that they are as close to fascism as the state socialists they oppose, and the true opposite of it is anarcho-socialism, libertarian socialism, market socialism, which is an idea they're not even capable of thinking thanks to this Orwellian newspeak that can't distinguish between things anymore.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."