This is just silly. What is the Good? Who decides what is the Good?
A jury of peers is capable of deciding the innocence or guilt of a person in a criminal trial. Why should they be any less capable of making judgements about aesthetic beauty? Sometimes the expression 'a jury of peers' can mean experts in the field, the way it does in academic science. You and I both decide for ourselves what is Good and Beautiful, but we also influence others and are influenced by them.
To suggest an example, one might look at the way community standards have been used as a guide in obscenity rulings. As part of such rulings, judges must decide whether there is artistic merit in works being impugned. But they also try to determine and take into consideration the moral standards of the community in which the work is being presented. There is nothing terribly outrageous or authoritarian about these processes. They are entirely democratic.
You are confusing judicious disapproval with thoughtless narrow mindedness. You needn't do so.
I definitely don't follow the logic that "that's why it ought not to be protected by copyright at all."
Yes, you're right I think I might have confused myself a bit at the end of that sentence. It was late. What I probably meant to say is something like this:
In the case of drugs, public policy can be very focused and narrow in its objectives
A narrow and focused approach is better than a diffuse and unfocused approach
Since the encouragement of the production of music does not lend itself to the former kind of stewarding, it may be dangerously inefficient to try stewarding it at all
I should add that I am not talking about forbidding or restricting any kind of creative output at all, just being selective and careful about what to encourage and promote. Shouldn't we encourage what is good?
Over my dead body will people in positions of authority and power decide what's good and right music
They already do. Not just the religious right, but Clear Channel and Sony and RIAA for that matter, are all deciding what you should listen to. Furthermore, governmental organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts have been making value judgements like this for a long time. Are they controversial? Yes. Do they get their asses kicked sometimes? Sure. But they are not afraid to fund things that the market wouldn't support but that have artistic merit. Merit is usually judged the same way it is judged in science or law -- by a jury of peers.
One could imagine (I'm not claiming this is the best or even a good idea) a sort of trial or jury procedure that a work must go through to be protected by copyright. It would be cumbersome, certainly, but people with ideas much better than mine are just being drowned out by the information monopolists who have so much to lose.
It's certainly not the job of lawmakers to fashion laws that would reduce the production of Britneys and increase the production of indie bands. Their job is to increase the production of music.
It is *not* the job of a lawmaker to increase the production of music. That's not even the job of record executives. It's nobody's job, and that's the way it ought to be. Even the poppiest of pop stars doesn't see it as their responsibility to increase the production of music. They do what they think is good and what seems to please their audiences. Unfortunately, they are insulated from their fans by the star-maker machinery. So it therefore falls to copyright law and market economics to decide what is good, rather than anyone who actually cares about music.
But what about, say, music? What kind of music do we "need"?
We don't *need* a certain kind of music. We need music PERIOD. As long as there's some kind of music, the need is satisfied. When you're sick you need a certian type of treatment, but that's not the case for music. That's why it ought not to be protected by copyright at all.
Music is much healthier when the creators are closer to the consumers, when the consumers are participants, as in a live performance. Music is healthier when it can be freely shared, as is the case in folk traditions. Shrink wrapped music takes musicians away from audiences, even though it may create audiences for musicians.
There now exists many times more music than any person could listen to in a lifetime. To say that that is enough of a good thing is not to say that there are not good things created in every generation. But why do we keep adding fertilizer to our garden when it is already overgrown? The "More is always better" philosophy is a North American bias or pathology. More is *not* always better. Sometimes more is worse because it depletes or dilutes the Good.
I'm not willing pass judgment on what is "needed" and what's not, and I'm not willing to let anyone else decide it.
You've lost the game in that case. The Good and the Right are everything when deciding how laws should or should not be made. People in positions of authority and power are *required* to make such decisions many times a day. By *not* being willing to decide such things you have already let someone else make the decision.
I agree that it needs to be completely wiped out, but for a slightly different reason.
The "information owners" lobby is too powerful for incremental change to work in favour of public interest or good. Since the members of that group also control the public dialogue on such matters via their distribution channels, it becomes doubly difficult to press back gently.
Moreover, current IP is a blunt instrument that lends itself to abuse because it deals with overly broad classes of material, with no provision for measuring merit. There's lots of noise generated, but not much signal.
Is that really the best we can do? Who knows? No one is proposing alternatives because the airwaves are choked with received opinion and regurgitated pap courtesy of the knowguls (ya know, like moguls).
Everyone knows that "people will still get off their asses and make stuff" even if we don't have IP protection;... The real question is whether we can have *more* people get off their asses and make stuff if we provide IP protection.
The quantity of output does nothing to address the real need to which resources should be put. If you artificially force capital to move into certain areas, it will go there, but then that's no surprise, is it? The more important question is this: Will you get the results you need? A cure for cancer? What drug company has any incentive to create a *cure* for cancer. Isn't it a much better business model to just treat the symptoms? What you really want is a way to encourage the right kind of output, the needed output, not just blindly throw favours at some particular sector of the economy.
There once existed a means to achieve needed intellectual goods, namely the University, but that institution is now a mere handmaiden to market interests. Of course, with the creative output of academia now hobbled by "market relevance" and special interest lobbies, no engine of intellectual freedom is left. So of course, public policy has to shift toward strengthened intellectual property law. Hence as universities weaken and academic freedom erodes, there is a corresponding rise in the breadth and venom of intellectual property protection.
To cite one example, Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation as a reaction to the commercialization of academic research. Perhaps there would be no Free Software movement at all if our universities were as strong and free as they ought to be. Nor, of course would there be the current boundless monopolies in intellectual property that have moved in to fill the void left by the death of academia. The university has let its proper role in society be usurped by charlatans.
I stumbled upon snopes.com for the first time while trying to determint whether the Peter Lynds story above was a hoax. I was searching for info about his publicist Brooke Jones, an Independent Communications Consultant. The google search leads to numerous links about urban legends. One site in particular http://www.truthminers.com/truth/jones.htm has a further link to snopes. Cool, eh? 6 degrees of internet separation.
Ozone layer must be removed...
on
Ozone As Pesticide
·
· Score: 4, Funny
because it is infringing on our patent. Please cease and desist immediately or we will be forced to initiate legal action.
I'm not sure I understand how these points relate directly to the printer cartridge issue. Is there anyone who can enlighten me?
This one, for instance, seems to refer to computer programs that cannot be copied. What does copying computer programs during the ordinary operation of a machine have to do with printer technology?
Computer programs embedded in a machine or product and which cannot be copied during the ordinary operation or use of the machine or product.
This one seems even more obscure. Why would it be important that the programs do not otherwise control the performance, display or reproduction of copyrighted works? Does this draw a distinction between software or firmware that is capable of the display of proprietary information for the purposes of reverse engineering, and software which is only used to perform a compatible function without aiding in reverse engineering? Gah!! I am obviously not a lawyer. Anyone else know?
Computer programs embedded in a machine or product connected thereto, but that do not otherwise control the performance, display or reproduction of copyrighted works that have an independent economic significance.
The way I wrote the sentence, it sounded like I meant that the 2M was for both development and the patent filing. I really meant that the patent filing alone could cost 2M. I get this figure from having spoken to people who have filed successful patents. The cost of initial filing may not be that great, but if you have to pay a lawyer to do a bunch of leg work on a patent application that gets rejected or questioned by the patent examiner, the process can get very, very expensive.
Additionally, if one is considering the overall cost to the economy of the patent regime, one should also include the cost of running the patent office. Even if I'm picking my numbers out of thin air, it's a safe bet that the budget of the USPTO is >> 0.
However, the economics of software are different than those of, say, drugs. Drug companies are apparently very eager to pay the cost of patenting even minor variations on a theme. The perpetual patenting of drugs is so common it has evolved its own nickname -- evergreening (or evergreeding, as I prefer to call it).
The reason this doesn't work as well with software and business method patents is that the process of bug fixing which gives rise to the new version of the algorithm, is generally less costly per unit (where a unit is defined as a new product version, either drug or code, ready for market) than for drug development because of the additional cost of FDA approval, clinical trials, etc.
Right, that's a very interesting and important point. You can kind of imagine the sequence of events unfolding like this:
Public scrutiny forces a redisign of the algorithm
The redesigned algorithm cannot be covered by the original patent
Either Google applies for a new patent covering the improved algorithm, or they let the algorithm become public domain, since it can no longer be a trade secret
which means the money spent on the development and the patenting process (which might be on the order of 2 million USD) is wasted
Doesn't this indicate that software and business method patents do more to waste resources than generate innovation? You're hamstrung -- unable to improve your new moustrap because if you do, it won't be protected anymore. Or you'll have to go through the whole expensive process of applying for a patent all over again. This doesn't sound like a very strong incentive for R & D. It sounds more like a pain in the ass.
Since the interests of a business aren't necessarily aligned with those of buyers, and those of a monopoly even less so, MS computing will be about as trusworthy as the rest of the business world. Unless there's someone (regulator or consumer interest group) breathing down their neck, they are unlikely to be worthy of anyone's trust.
Music is a calling, not an industry. Thank heavens the record companies are being squeezed out. Now a musician can reach his audience without being shrink-wrapped first.
tried to bake a cake in the toaster when i was 3 and a bit. Remember quite clearly the sparks and flames coming out of the slots. figured that rising should work for cakes if it works for toast.
As long as you leave critical infrastructure in the hands of people who have no public mandate or regulator and who are only concerned with profit, you are asking for trouble.
It's strange that a country so concerned about security and stability would let its own citizens be manipulated and abused by commercial "governments".
Duplication is not waste. What you lose in duplication, you gain in lower prices through competition. If you don't believe me, ask any economist.
Yes, we disagree about the empirical evidence. But my point was that many times we ignore empirical evidence or we turn a blind eye to it if it doesn't support our pre-conceived ideas such as this one:
Competition is good.
with no evidence to back it up. Perhaps there is a lot of evidence to support that statement, but you haven't showed me any. This sounds more like a mantra than an an observation of fact.
However, just because [the roads] are public does not mean that you have to have one company.
Of course not. If I have one set of sewer pipes leading out of my house, I could still have many different plumbers or contractors connecting me to the public system when my house is built. But it seems to me that having a public system at all means by definition that the system is owned and regulated by whoever acts on behalf of the public. The only institution whose express purpose is to act on behalf of the public, regardless of market conditions, is the government. Why should anyone else own the roads and sewers?
And switching bus companies does not mean that you have to have a separate road built to your house. Your sewer analogy is flawed.
You didn't really say *how* your counterexample showed that my analogy is flawed. You just said so. You'll have to do more to convince me than merely restating your conclusions.
Laying wire is much different than sewer pipes. Wires take up much less space than pipes, it is possible for many companies to lay wires throughout a city.
Yes, but isn't it still more efficient to have the wires laid once and then make them available on a cost recovery basis only? Why do many cables have to do the job of one? I think this is really the problem behind the telecom bust. Everyone went crazy laying cable, to the point that there was a huge oversupply. The individual companies didn't have enough customers to fill the bandwidth that they had installed, so most of it stayed dark. If the government had simply contracted out the laying of telecom infrastructure in an organized way, the service disruptions that are commonplace in the networked world would be as rare as they are in local telephone systems.
And regarding my comments on private handling of airport security, you said:
The problem with this argument, is that up until a few months ago, all airport security was private.
If private industry were doing a good enough job, no government intervention would have been necessary, even after the terrorist attacks. It was because of systemic failures and lack of oversight (regulation) that prompted the government to step in.
If you take your argument above, and insert cars instead of power utilities, you will see that your argument is again flawed. There are not 300 differnet car companies in the US, even though cars are not regulated. The market tends to level itself of at about 5 or 6 strong comapaines.
So you agree with my premise that 5 strong companies are better than 300 crappy ones. OK, now we're getting somewhere.;-)
I think the market's instinct in this regard is very true. Mergers and acquisitions allow cost savings, especially in administrative overhead.
If you go away with nothing else after having read this, just remember this: State run organizations are extrememly inefficient.
I may go away with other stuff, but I won't go away with that. Until you provide me with numbers *and* an unambiguous definition of "efficient" operations that we can both agree on. Until then you're just spitting into the wind.
State run organitions should only be used as a last resort.
As I said in my previous post, I am aware of the reputation that state run organizations have been saddled with. Some of it is deserved, no doubt, but some of it is the result of ideological rigidity, commonly known as tunnel vision. I agree that most of the economic activity should be left in the hands of entrepreneurs and direct owners. My only point was that it is *conceivable* that other arrangements may be appropriate for certain social, economic, or civic purposes. If you go away with nothing else after having read this, just remember this: Choose the right tool for the job. Don't just see everything as a nail because you're holding a hammer.
Recently, there have been some smaller DSL companies that have wanted to lay their own wiring instead of using AT&T's existing wiring. However, it was illegal for them to do this, the government forced them to use AT&T's wiring or nothing at all.
One thing I don't understand about this statement the assumption that it would be a more efficient use of resources to have 50 companies lay wire over the same 10 kilometers, rather than having each of them agreeing to cover part of the distance. I keep comparing this uber-free-market scenario to the laughable idea of having competitive water and sewer services. Hey, I can switch to ABZ Water and Sewer and save $0.50 a month! Get the Bobcats rolling, boys! I'm tearing up my yard this minute. Then I get a better offer from AAB Water and Sewer. OK, another set of pipes and drains gets attached to my house. After a few of these money-saving offers, every square foot of my house has pipes connected to it, only one set of which I'm actually using.
Is this the kind of efficiency that competitive, deregulated markets are supposed to provide? No thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are lots good things about competitive, deregulated markets. But just to say, a priori, without evidence that every single concievable human endeavour will be more productive and efficient if it is delivered by multiple competing providers is not rational. It seems to me that if you examine certain markets, that they are much more efficient when operated by a regulated monopoloy or (heaven forbid) by the government itself than they would be if they were run by a band of squabbling competitors.
If you have many competitors, you have a lot of duplication. If you have duplication, you have waste. Anyone in mergers and acquisitions will attest to that.
There are a couple of other situations in which a regulated monopoly or a state-owned enterprise might make more sense than an unreglated free market. Take a business like airport security. The service or product must be available even if a sudden and prolonged change in market conditions make it unprofitable to provide security services. People simply demand security even if it cannot always be provided at a profit by the private sector.
Another situation in which one might choose state ownership or regulation over private ownership is one in which the product or service needs to be available at a very stable price, such as is the case with power utilities. Having 300 vendors battling for my power business, and then having half of them going out of business every two years would be a huge burden on the economy. The construction of large scale power grids and production facilities requires the kind of stability and advance planning that would be difficult to sustain in a perfectly competitive (or nearly so) market.
Yet another instance in which private, competitive, free-market providers seem to have trouble is in voluntarily making their products interoperable. Just ask Microsoft how they feel about having to expose their various APIs.
Seems to me that sometimes our obsession with free-market ideology gets the better of our common sense.
If America wants to remain competitive in the 21st Century, She's got to have information markets that are as efficient as possible. The only way to do this is to have reasonably free knowledge infrastructure: education, communication, and culture. Too many legal restrictions will drown these crucial growth industries in red tape and leave American information industries far behind those of Europe and Asia.
Don't let the interests of a vocal and corrupt minority prevail over freedom of speech, freedom of thought and innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
A jury of peers is capable of deciding the innocence or guilt of a person in a criminal trial. Why should they be any less capable of making judgements about aesthetic beauty? Sometimes the expression 'a jury of peers' can mean experts in the field, the way it does in academic science. You and I both decide for ourselves what is Good and Beautiful, but we also influence others and are influenced by them.
To suggest an example, one might look at the way community standards have been used as a guide in obscenity rulings. As part of such rulings, judges must decide whether there is artistic merit in works being impugned. But they also try to determine and take into consideration the moral standards of the community in which the work is being presented. There is nothing terribly outrageous or authoritarian about these processes. They are entirely democratic.
You are confusing judicious disapproval with thoughtless narrow mindedness. You needn't do so.
Yes, you're right I think I might have confused myself a bit at the end of that sentence. It was late. What I probably meant to say is something like this:
- In the case of drugs, public policy can be very focused and narrow in its objectives
- A narrow and focused approach is better than a diffuse and unfocused approach
- Since the encouragement of the production of music does not lend itself to the former kind of stewarding, it may be dangerously inefficient to try stewarding it at all
Sorry if I was not clear.I should add that I am not talking about forbidding or restricting any kind of creative output at all, just being selective and careful about what to encourage and promote. Shouldn't we encourage what is good?
They already do. Not just the religious right, but Clear Channel and Sony and RIAA for that matter, are all deciding what you should listen to. Furthermore, governmental organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts have been making value judgements like this for a long time. Are they controversial? Yes. Do they get their asses kicked sometimes? Sure. But they are not afraid to fund things that the market wouldn't support but that have artistic merit. Merit is usually judged the same way it is judged in science or law -- by a jury of peers.
One could imagine (I'm not claiming this is the best or even a good idea) a sort of trial or jury procedure that a work must go through to be protected by copyright. It would be cumbersome, certainly, but people with ideas much better than mine are just being drowned out by the information monopolists who have so much to lose.
It is *not* the job of a lawmaker to increase the production of music. That's not even the job of record executives. It's nobody's job, and that's the way it ought to be. Even the poppiest of pop stars doesn't see it as their responsibility to increase the production of music. They do what they think is good and what seems to please their audiences. Unfortunately, they are insulated from their fans by the star-maker machinery. So it therefore falls to copyright law and market economics to decide what is good, rather than anyone who actually cares about music.
We don't *need* a certain kind of music. We need music PERIOD. As long as there's some kind of music, the need is satisfied. When you're sick you need a certian type of treatment, but that's not the case for music. That's why it ought not to be protected by copyright at all.
Music is much healthier when the creators are closer to the consumers, when the consumers are participants, as in a live performance. Music is healthier when it can be freely shared, as is the case in folk traditions. Shrink wrapped music takes musicians away from audiences, even though it may create audiences for musicians.
There now exists many times more music than any person could listen to in a lifetime. To say that that is enough of a good thing is not to say that there are not good things created in every generation. But why do we keep adding fertilizer to our garden when it is already overgrown? The "More is always better" philosophy is a North American bias or pathology. More is *not* always better. Sometimes more is worse because it depletes or dilutes the Good.
You've lost the game in that case. The Good and the Right are everything when deciding how laws should or should not be made. People in positions of authority and power are *required* to make such decisions many times a day. By *not* being willing to decide such things you have already let someone else make the decision.
The "information owners" lobby is too powerful for incremental change to work in favour of public interest or good. Since the members of that group also control the public dialogue on such matters via their distribution channels, it becomes doubly difficult to press back gently.
Moreover, current IP is a blunt instrument that lends itself to abuse because it deals with overly broad classes of material, with no provision for measuring merit. There's lots of noise generated, but not much signal.
Is that really the best we can do? Who knows? No one is proposing alternatives because the airwaves are choked with received opinion and regurgitated pap courtesy of the knowguls (ya know, like moguls).
There once existed a means to achieve needed intellectual goods, namely the University, but that institution is now a mere handmaiden to market interests. Of course, with the creative output of academia now hobbled by "market relevance" and special interest lobbies, no engine of intellectual freedom is left. So of course, public policy has to shift toward strengthened intellectual property law. Hence as universities weaken and academic freedom erodes, there is a corresponding rise in the breadth and venom of intellectual property protection.
To cite one example, Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation as a reaction to the commercialization of academic research. Perhaps there would be no Free Software movement at all if our universities were as strong and free as they ought to be. Nor, of course would there be the current boundless monopolies in intellectual property that have moved in to fill the void left by the death of academia. The university has let its proper role in society be usurped by charlatans.
I stumbled upon snopes.com for the first time while trying to determint whether the Peter Lynds story above was a hoax. I was searching for info about his publicist Brooke Jones, an Independent Communications Consultant. The google search leads to numerous links about urban legends. One site in particular http://www.truthminers.com/truth/jones.htm has a further link to snopes. Cool, eh? 6 degrees of internet separation.
because it is infringing on our patent. Please cease and desist immediately or we will be forced to initiate legal action.
This one, for instance, seems to refer to computer programs that cannot be copied. What does copying computer programs during the ordinary operation of a machine have to do with printer technology?
This one seems even more obscure. Why would it be important that the programs do not otherwise control the performance, display or reproduction of copyrighted works? Does this draw a distinction between software or firmware that is capable of the display of proprietary information for the purposes of reverse engineering, and software which is only used to perform a compatible function without aiding in reverse engineering? Gah!! I am obviously not a lawyer. Anyone else know?
Additionally, if one is considering the overall cost to the economy of the patent regime, one should also include the cost of running the patent office. Even if I'm picking my numbers out of thin air, it's a safe bet that the budget of the USPTO is >> 0.
However, the economics of software are different than those of, say, drugs. Drug companies are apparently very eager to pay the cost of patenting even minor variations on a theme. The perpetual patenting of drugs is so common it has evolved its own nickname -- evergreening (or evergreeding, as I prefer to call it).
The reason this doesn't work as well with software and business method patents is that the process of bug fixing which gives rise to the new version of the algorithm, is generally less costly per unit (where a unit is defined as a new product version, either drug or code, ready for market) than for drug development because of the additional cost of FDA approval, clinical trials, etc.
- Public scrutiny forces a redisign of the algorithm
- The redesigned algorithm cannot be covered by the original patent
- Either Google applies for a new patent covering the improved algorithm, or they let the algorithm become public domain, since it can no longer be a trade secret
- which means the money spent on the development and the patenting process (which might be on the order of 2 million USD) is wasted
Doesn't this indicate that software and business method patents do more to waste resources than generate innovation? You're hamstrung -- unable to improve your new moustrap because if you do, it won't be protected anymore. Or you'll have to go through the whole expensive process of applying for a patent all over again. This doesn't sound like a very strong incentive for R & D. It sounds more like a pain in the ass.the path of least resistance
Since the interests of a business aren't necessarily aligned with those of buyers, and those of a monopoly even less so, MS computing will be about as trusworthy as the rest of the business world. Unless there's someone (regulator or consumer interest group) breathing down their neck, they are unlikely to be worthy of anyone's trust.
How about the Rolling Stones renting "Start Me Up" to Unlcle Bill for the Windows 95 launch? The world's greatest rock band sucks ass...
Music is a calling, not an industry. Thank heavens the record companies are being squeezed out. Now a musician can reach his audience without being shrink-wrapped first.
It doesn't matter what the middlemen offer. They are still irrelevant. Long live live music.
tried to bake a cake in the toaster when i was 3 and a bit. Remember quite clearly the sparks and flames coming out of the slots. figured that rising should work for cakes if it works for toast.
Why name memory chip standard after the year in which the Battle of Hastings was fought?
It's strange that a country so concerned about security and stability would let its own citizens be manipulated and abused by commercial "governments".
They steal culture from people, suck the life out of it, shrink-wrap it and sell it back to those who created it in the first place.
I'd pay 20 cents a download if I knew the money was going to artists and not to Virgin or BMG or whatever.
Duplication is not waste. What you lose in duplication, you gain in lower prices through competition. If you don't believe me, ask any economist.
;-)
Yes, we disagree about the empirical evidence. But my point was that many times we ignore empirical evidence or we turn a blind eye to it if it doesn't support our pre-conceived ideas such as this one:
Competition is good.
with no evidence to back it up. Perhaps there is a lot of evidence to support that statement, but you haven't showed me any. This sounds more like a mantra than an an observation of fact.
However, just because [the roads] are public does not mean that you have to have one company.
Of course not. If I have one set of sewer pipes leading out of my house, I could still have many different plumbers or contractors connecting me to the public system when my house is built. But it seems to me that having a public system at all means by definition that the system is owned and regulated by whoever acts on behalf of the public. The only institution whose express purpose is to act on behalf of the public, regardless of market conditions, is the government. Why should anyone else own the roads and sewers?
And switching bus companies does not mean that you have to have a separate road built to your house. Your sewer analogy is flawed.
You didn't really say *how* your counterexample showed that my analogy is flawed. You just said so. You'll have to do more to convince me than merely restating your conclusions.
Laying wire is much different than sewer pipes. Wires take up much less space than pipes, it is possible for many companies to lay wires throughout a city.
Yes, but isn't it still more efficient to have the wires laid once and then make them available on a cost recovery basis only? Why do many cables have to do the job of one? I think this is really the problem behind the telecom bust. Everyone went crazy laying cable, to the point that there was a huge oversupply. The individual companies didn't have enough customers to fill the bandwidth that they had installed, so most of it stayed dark. If the government had simply contracted out the laying of telecom infrastructure in an organized way, the service disruptions that are commonplace in the networked world would be as rare as they are in local telephone systems.
And regarding my comments on private handling of airport security, you said:
The problem with this argument, is that up until a few months ago, all airport security was private.
If private industry were doing a good enough job, no government intervention would have been necessary, even after the terrorist attacks. It was because of systemic failures and lack of oversight (regulation) that prompted the government to step in.
If you take your argument above, and insert cars instead of power utilities, you will see that your argument is again flawed. There are not 300 differnet car companies in the US, even though cars are not regulated. The market tends to level itself of at about 5 or 6 strong comapaines.
So you agree with my premise that 5 strong companies are better than 300 crappy ones. OK, now we're getting somewhere.
I think the market's instinct in this regard is very true. Mergers and acquisitions allow cost savings, especially in administrative overhead.
If you go away with nothing else after having read this, just remember this: State run organizations are extrememly inefficient.
I may go away with other stuff, but I won't go away with that. Until you provide me with numbers *and* an unambiguous definition of "efficient" operations that we can both agree on. Until then you're just spitting into the wind.
State run organitions should only be used as a last resort.
As I said in my previous post, I am aware of the reputation that state run organizations have been saddled with. Some of it is deserved, no doubt, but some of it is the result of ideological rigidity, commonly known as tunnel vision. I agree that most of the economic activity should be left in the hands of entrepreneurs and direct owners. My only point was that it is *conceivable* that other arrangements may be appropriate for certain social, economic, or civic purposes. If you go away with nothing else after having read this, just remember this: Choose the right tool for the job. Don't just see everything as a nail because you're holding a hammer.
Recently, there have been some smaller DSL companies that have wanted to lay their own wiring instead of using AT&T's existing wiring. However, it was illegal for them to do this, the government forced them to use AT&T's wiring or nothing at all.
One thing I don't understand about this statement the assumption that it would be a more efficient use of resources to have 50 companies lay wire over the same 10 kilometers, rather than having each of them agreeing to cover part of the distance. I keep comparing this uber-free-market scenario to the laughable idea of having competitive water and sewer services. Hey, I can switch to ABZ Water and Sewer and save $0.50 a month! Get the Bobcats rolling, boys! I'm tearing up my yard this minute. Then I get a better offer from AAB Water and Sewer. OK, another set of pipes and drains gets attached to my house. After a few of these money-saving offers, every square foot of my house has pipes connected to it, only one set of which I'm actually using.
Is this the kind of efficiency that competitive, deregulated markets are supposed to provide? No thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are lots good things about competitive, deregulated markets. But just to say, a priori, without evidence that every single concievable human endeavour will be more productive and efficient if it is delivered by multiple competing providers is not rational. It seems to me that if you examine certain markets, that they are much more efficient when operated by a regulated monopoloy or (heaven forbid) by the government itself than they would be if they were run by a band of squabbling competitors.
If you have many competitors, you have a lot of duplication. If you have duplication, you have waste. Anyone in mergers and acquisitions will attest to that.
There are a couple of other situations in which a regulated monopoly or a state-owned enterprise might make more sense than an unreglated free market. Take a business like airport security. The service or product must be available even if a sudden and prolonged change in market conditions make it unprofitable to provide security services. People simply demand security even if it cannot always be provided at a profit by the private sector.
Another situation in which one might choose state ownership or regulation over private ownership is one in which the product or service needs to be available at a very stable price, such as is the case with power utilities. Having 300 vendors battling for my power business, and then having half of them going out of business every two years would be a huge burden on the economy. The construction of large scale power grids and production facilities requires the kind of stability and advance planning that would be difficult to sustain in a perfectly competitive (or nearly so) market.
Yet another instance in which private, competitive, free-market providers seem to have trouble is in voluntarily making their products interoperable. Just ask Microsoft how they feel about having to expose their various APIs.
Seems to me that sometimes our obsession with free-market ideology gets the better of our common sense.
If America wants to remain competitive in the 21st Century, She's got to have information markets that are as efficient as possible. The only way to do this is to have reasonably free knowledge infrastructure: education, communication, and culture. Too many legal restrictions will drown these crucial growth industries in red tape and leave American information industries far behind those of Europe and Asia.
Don't let the interests of a vocal and corrupt minority prevail over freedom of speech, freedom of thought and innovation.