"Now that we got that out of the way, the question is: did this person commit a crime? IMHO he did. He did the equivalent of taking somebody's work without payment. If you disagree, consider this: You spend a year of your life developing a program, with plans to sell it for income, but instead I simply TAKE the program off bittorrent. I have stolen your labor without just compensation."
I have a very hard time following that logic. Under no natural law has the person been deprived of anything. The program is still available to him. Only because of an institutional barrier granting him forcefully-enforced exclusive ability to distribute his work can we even start to approach the deprivation argument.
Without getting into right vs. wrong (which is entirely subjective anyway), you can easily claim that presently the authority is depriving the rest of society of an artistic creation. There is no inherent natural "right" to "own" what you create. If my neighbour has a slab of stone on his driveway and I carve a statue out of it I do not own the slab. If I invent a song and sing it aloud in front of a group of people there is no natural law that would grant me the exclusive ownership over that creation.
You may argue that one would not create without such institutional deprivation but as an artist myself I would not agree. That fallacy confuses the creative genius with the entrepreneur. Under a system with no institutional monopoly on the distribution of creative works an entrepreneur would be free take measures to guard his creations if he so chooses, but in such a world creative artistic endeavours would be undertaken by creative geniuses (for the sake of creating) and entrepreneurs would concern themselves with satisfying the consumer by offering them easier access to artistic creations. Even today, with copyright, we can see the value-added bundles that entrepreneurs build around open source software.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the world's most culturally influential artistic creations were created in a world where copyright was a foreign concept. Many more well renown artists were employed by despots to create for them against their will. That implies to me that there was an institutionally-imposed deterrence against becoming a well known artist but it did not stop the creative geniuses from creating nonetheless.
Finally, you may make the argument that copyright is essential for promoting software development. That the incentives do not exist for a business to invest in the creation of new software if they do not maintain the exclusive authority to distribute it. However, in reality this ideal put into practice favours existing large enterprise at the expense of their competition. Only those companies which own huge portfolios of copyright, and possess the resources to defend those copyrights in court, benefit from the absence of competition as imposed by copyright. The creator, be him a musician or a software developer, would have an easier time promoting his/her creations and making something out of them if 3rd parties had the ability to distribute them to create and satisfy demand. Doors are created that did not exist before.
How often have we heard of new artists becoming famous thanks to the distributive power of the Internet ? Now imagine if there were no barriers preventing anyone from distributing creations online or off. Now ask yourself if copyright truly makes it any easier for you to build a profitable business creating and distributing new software. Piracy exists either way, and advertising is expensive. Plagiarism and fraud are misrepresenting products to the consumers and are vary much illegal without copyright (so a company could not distribute your work and claim that they are it's creators). Copyright actually makes it more difficult for creators and entrepreneurs to create successful business selling their creations. In the absence of copyright gaining publicity for your creations would be exponentially easier, provided that your creations are actually valuable - if they are not then copyright still does not help you. Though it may restrict everyone's options causing them to settle for inferior products due to lack of competition.
I wouldn't. Trying to sell warranties to keep costs down might be annoying. it might even be redundant in cases like that, but it helps everyone. People who don't need or want them can say "no thanks", people who really do want one pay for one, the company sees a little more on it's incoming and will be forced to lower it's prices to stay competitive.
Also, the GP didn't say how much the warranty cost. If it was a percentage of the sales price, then that lady may have thought that spending $1 on a warranty will save her $4 later on when she has to replace it. Maybe she drinks at her computer a lot and has had to replace a lot of mice and keyboards. Maybe she's had bad luck with mice breaking on her. But no, it's far more likely that she's a brainwashed zombie who can't think for herself.
Insinuating that people are somehow idiots who can't think for themselves, and that companies prey on them is WAY more insulting. I get offended as a human being when people make such claims. Those people don't consider that companies have policies that offer warranties on every tech product. That it's a way for them to compete, which ultimately lowers everyone's prices. If it weren't for competitive strategies such as that we'd all still be paying $50 per mouse like we were 10 - 15 years ago.
Meanwhile everyone has a higher cost of living because stores need to account for the higher costs of complying with such regulations (being out perfectly good inventory that comes back damaged, having to pay more for labour to deal with accepting returns and the turn-around etc.) which goes straight on to the prices.
If the majority thinks that the cost is worth it, then it doesn't matter. They're getting something for it. People just need to realize that those types of regulations don't purely help consumers and hurt businesses. They have a cost associated that everyone has to bear.
On the flip side, without those regulations you can always turn around and resell a product that you realize that you don't want. You might still take a loss, but then, you went out and bought a product you didn't really want. Personally I'd rather people who buy products that they don't want take the loss instead of everyone.
Yeah. Poor woman who can't think for herself. It's such a shame that people in general are such sheep. If only they'd realize that they're being brainwashed and have puppet strings. Free will is an illusion and we're all slaves to business who are somehow not really people or consumers like the masses. Thank heavens the customers after her got you or they'd have all been forced against their will to pay for something that they didn't want.
"I never found out for sure, but I've heard that store managers receive bonuses for keeping payrolls low. My store manager was paid 63K a year while the understaffed underlings often work for minimum wages. Keep that in mind the next time you visit a drug or grocery store with 30 people in line being served by only 2 cashiers."
Oh please. Everything up until that paragraph I would buy as plausible. But do you know WHY they pay their employees so little ? Because people are willing to take the jobs at those wages. Do you know why they only have 2 cashiers working ? Because people are willing to wait in line a little longer to pay cheaper prices (otherwise Walmart would not be in business, let alone so huge).
Do you know why the employer wants to pay as little for labour as possible ? Because labour is an operational cost, just like leasing office space, buying equipment and paying for advertising etc. EVERYONE, whether you're a business owner or not, always wants to sell high and buy low. That's not greed. It's common sense. However, what people really don't get about it is that by keeping operational costs down, the prices get kept down. So while people's wages may be lower, their costs of living is also lower. Raise the wages, raise the prices. We all make more money but not really because everything costs more.
As for managers, managers are not entrepreneurs. They are hired by the owners to oversee departments and divisions. Their wages are just as much an operational cost as any other employee's. Now, sure, of course they will do what they can to get a higher pay for doing less work, just like any employee will. But in the end the entrepreneur needs to keep ALL costs down in order to compete with other businesses. You know, to stay in business.
So if the owners are paying the managers ridiculously large wages while the people actually doing the "real work" are getting cheated then the entrepreneur will not be in business very long. It will only take ONE company to pay his manager just a little less (since apparently there's so much of an inflated salary to cut into right there), and pay his employees better (he'll take all the good employees and undermine his competitors on service) and presto, he's got the market share.
Also, while people might not like the sales pitch, by selling protection plans the company is able to lower the prices of it's products to compete. It's competitors follow suit to remain competitive and, while we might have to listen to a slightly annoying 2 second sales pitch, we ALL pay less for hardware as a result.
"Abolishing them completely is a bad idea - in fact, it would make people stop using their heads."
Actually, this is fallacy.
I'm an "artist". I've written lots of songs. I've recorded, produced and released a musical album. I've written short stories. I've created paintings. In other words, I "own" lots of copyrights. Guess how much copyright has benefited me ? Absolutely nil.
My post from this point forward is going to deal exclusively with music, because that's what I know best. But I think the concepts will apply to every kind of art from movies to paintings to books. Also, I know a lot of musicians who make a decent amount of money doing studio for-hire work and playing live shows. But that has nothing to do with copyright. I'm only talking about the "creative process".
The reason for the fallacy of "copyrights encourage people to create" is that it confuses the creative genius and the entrepreneur. While I can't speak for every single artist on the planet, I can say that every single musician that I have ever known directly has never created for the sake of making money.
Sure, there is always the "dream". The dream that we will make it big and become famous rock stars. But as soon as you start talking business and economics with musicians the creative process is ruined. In fact, the majority, if not all, of the artists I know grew up saying "I'd be happy working at McDonald's my whole life if it means I can keep writing music and don't have to become a suit like my parents". In other words, the dream is considered by many to be in direct conflict with business. As soon as creating becomes a job the joy of creating is lost and writer's block ensues.
Copyright protects distributors from competitors. Guess what, competitors include the artists themselves. Most artists buy into the idea of copyright because morally they object to some greedy capitalist profiting from their work without compensating them for it. It's hard to argue with that mindset, it makes sense. However, you need to try to imagine a world without any copyright what-so-ever to see what would actually happen.
First off, in our current world no company will distribute a recording without express written consent. If a DJ or a small start-up wants to distribute music they have to go through "the channels". The channels usually mean either a) purchasing licenses from the RIAA or similar organizations or b) waiting for artists to sign up and send you their music themselves. In both cases, small businesses and artists get stiffed and the major "mainstream" distributors benefit by not having competitors enter the field.
Copyright can not make anyone like your music (all opinions about mainstream music aside). You have to be good to begin with. People have to like your stuff. Copyright doesn't help you in that regard. Most artists fail right there. But then with regards to copyright not only do you have to be a really good artist but you have to have a lot of business sense too. Because only you, or people you give permission to, can distribute your work. You have to turn your "creative process" into a full time business just to sell a few CDs. The very small amount of artists that are left at this point, the majority of them fail here too. So now we're left with a microfraction of artists who can distribute their work and actually make anywhere remotely near recouping their investment (all those years practicing, part time jobs saving to pay for gear and the studio time or home recording equipment, hiring the geek down the street to set you up with a promo web-page with mp3s and streams etc.). Copyright doesn't help in recruiting the investment, it hurts.
So what does a world without copyright look like ? Well, it is true that anyone can distribute your music and they don't have to pay you for it. But that's a good thing. It means that DJs and small Internet start-ups and entrepreneurs looking to sell compilations of indie music etc. don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of resources getting art
"The problem without copyright is how to make sure you can get back your investment on a recording. Studio time is still expensive, even though it's falling rapidly, recording an album is still quite an investment. Having copyright on the recording would guarantee a limited time (5-10 years is more than enough I think) to make up for your investment. Without copyrights the making of recordings I think will become really hard, and thus hurting the exposure of a musician. No recordings means no exposure. "
But the issue is that copyright does not ensure that you will get your investment back. It doesn't even help. At all.
Let's say that I go into the studio and invest some money to record an album, and then some 3rd party business, without my permission, decides to copy it and distribute it.
Scenario 1: They hurt me by taking credit for the work. They also hurt the consumers by misrepresenting the product. This is fraud and is very much illegal without the presence of copyright.
Scenario 2: They are unsuccessful because no one likes my creation. Copyright doesn't make people like things. So even with copyright I would not be helped at all.
Scenario 3: They are successful and make money through their venture. Lots of people like to consider this "stealing", since they're not compensating the artist. However, in actuality they have made it EASIER for me to recoup my investment by giving me new fans that I would not have had otherwise. As the artist, I will always have more credibility with fans than some 3rd party business. Yes, there are fans who just want a couple of singles for as cheap as possible. They will probably download the songs and not pay anything at all to anyone. The business who is distributing my work is probably selling to people who want large collections of songs by various artists. These people want to "discover" new music and these businesses provide them a way to do that. Furthermore, the business might be a big radio station who's DJ has found me and wants to share my work. With copyright he can't unless he contacts me first and gets my permission, the costs involved make it not worthy. Anyway these people who buy from the 3rd parties and not from me still help me indirectly by telling their friends about me etc. The "die hard" fans will always buy from ME because they want to get their work directly from the artist. They want the extra stuff that I bundle with my own CDs. These 3rd party businesses give me more of the die hard fans. Which always helps me. Copyright never helps me.
With the presence of copyright, doors close. For the artists and businesses alike. The only people who benefit from copyright are big corporations who hold a massive portfolio of copyrights and want to keep out competitors. Those competitors actually INCLUDE THE ARTISTS THEMSELVES! In fact, the artists are the primary competitors because they can always outbid the big distributors to the die hard fans who want to get their material directly from the artist, complete with all of the bonus stuff that the artist is able to package.
Other than a few Cathedral/Bazaar types, few people advocate for the total abolishment of copyright. We don't mind paying a reasonable price for good recordings. We wouldn't even mind paying per-Listening if any suitable billing system could be contrived."
The problem with copyright is that it benefits the distributors, which has never been the artists. Even with the Internet, copyright is never going to benefit the artists.
To provide some context to my opinion, I am an artist. I own the copyright to lots of works. I've recorded an album. I've written short stories. I've created many paintings. You know how much copyright has benefited me ? None.
In fact, WITHOUT copyright I would have the potential to benefit much more. Why ? Because if a radio station or a distribution company did not have to worry about copyrights and royalties I could get much more exposure, in theory. Of course it all boils down to whether or not my creations are any good. But copyright can not force people to pay money for bad music (all opinions about Britney Spears aside).
The fallacy with the concept of copyright is that it confuses the creative genius with the entrepreneur. The VAST majority of artists do not create for the sake of profiting from their work. Sure, there is always the dream. The dream that we will "make it" and be famous rock stars playing for sold out shows and having hoards of hot groupies wanting to have sex with us and die at a young age from a drug overdose. But the minute you start talking business and economics with artists you destroy the entire process of "creating" for them.
I'm in a unique position because I happen to be self-employed as well. But that hasn't enabled me to make lots of money from my work. Nor has the ability to maintain a monopoly on the distribution of my work ever been an incentive to create. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Business and art are worlds apart. While I can not speak for all artists, I know that this is true for every single musicians that I have ever had to pleasure of creating with. Some of them are pretty good at making money playing shows or doing studio work for hire, but when it comes to writing their own material, to creating, the business side of it never enters into the equation (unless they're under contract, and that has arguably destroyed more creative minds than has helped - inspiration can not be turned on with a switch and trying to do so often results in writer's block which can financially ruin an artist who is under contract).
The argument for copyright (for the artists' sake) usually boils down to this: morally speaking we don't want "greedy fat-cat rich capitalists" to be able to profit from our work without compensating us. While I can certainly understand this principle, I think that it would actually be in every artist's best interest to allow those entrepreneurs to do so. Why ? Because if the artist is lucky enough to get "picked up" and distributed, and the venture does well enough to earn the entrepreneur a profit, the artist is now famous. Without having to do a damned thing. Now, having the fame, the artist has been given a gift and can do with it as he/she pleases. They can package all of those songs that the entrepreneur is distributing sans-royalty, add a couple of new creations (one song, or some behind the scenes stuff or whatever) and then out-compete the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur has made a profit, the artist can now make a profit that he/she could not have made prior etc. Yet as long as the entrepreneurs has to worry about copyrights and royalties they will only concern themselves with those artists who are willing to enter into ridiculously one-sided contracts because the artist wants to get famous, nothing else matters.
The Internet changes very little. Yes, it is WAY easier for an artist to earn him/her-self exposure on the Internet now. However, copyright does not help that at all. It hinders it. No website can put up music without the artist's permission. So exposure for new artists is still entirely limited by how business-savy and/or lucky the artist is.
"I'm wondering why they can't just post them to multiple places - now that seems a more reasonable question to me."
I would rather they simply make the videos available on their own servers for anyone who is interested in watching and distributing them. Rather than spend tax payer money on a team who will distribute them to various free sites.
Free sites are free in terms of bandwidth, but the companies have their own business interests in mind. Only a contract with the government would force the company to keep the videos online indefinitely and not change the URLs etc. A business would have little reason to enter into such an agreement if they didn't get something sweet out of it, like an exclusive distribution deal. They'll get an ad boost too. Which will indirectly affect natural market forces. Pushing up one company at the expense of it's competition.
If the government had a team of people distributing them to various free-sites full or part time that just seems like a waste of tax dollars. If the public is interested in watching the videos they'll distribute them themselves, and they'll get up on youtube (and it's competitors, without government interference) anyway.
Well, we will never know how truly hard and expensive medicine is, since there's enough regulation in the industry to make new entry very difficult.
Of course drug research is expensive when you need to a) make sure your research is patented enough so that you have the exclusive rights to anything and everything that you research and b) make sure that you're complying with the expensive government regulations. Regulations that are pennies for a mega-corp but prohibitively expensive for a new start-up.
It's also common procedure for any big corporation to pay top dollar for retired politicians to lobby government in their in their favour. To regulate in ways that make it profitable for the existing corporations at the expense of everyone else.
Human history is full of small groups of researchers, not connected with huge pharmaceutical companies, who made important discoveries in medicine. From penicillin to the polio vaccine.
"I was under the impression that despite its horrific flaws, the current regime requires the drug researchers to seriously vouch for the (subset of) the data they present to the FDA."
Just like suing customers does not help the recording industry, killing customers is not in the best interest of the pharmaceutical companies.
There may be something to be said for drugs that treat HIV/AIDS, cancer and other diseases where the patient needs to be on medication for many years. There is also something to be said for addictive drugs and exploiting addiction to make a profit. A drug company that sells a drug that is promoted as a cure or a treatment but actually kills people or makes them sick is very bad for business.
There is a tremendous incentive for drug companies to not put out drugs that harm people. The public doesn't need FDA regulations to keep drug companies in check. We can do that ourselves through consumer watch groups, peer review and independent studies. Last I checked the government doesn't own our bodies. So responsible adults who wish to take risks in drug trials shouldn't need the government's permission to do so. FDA regulations, like almost any kind of government regulation, makes it extremely difficult for new competition by placing business (and consumer) decisions at the discretion of the regulatory body. It gives the big pharmaceutical companies a competitive advantage by limiting new entry into the industry. It plays a part in keeping drug prices high, along with patents (more government intervention that benefits a special interests).
So I think you raise a very good point. The FDA is probably what is going to prevent this project from accomplishing much.
"No, in capitalism, the capitalist class skims off the labor of producers by charging them for access to the resources that capitalists "own" and producers need to get stuff done."
How can you own labour if you can't own people ? How can you have a "class" of capitalists when everyone is able to own property ? (and note: I'm not talking about land and capital goods, specifically. Even my daughters owns capital - clothes, toys, cash etc.).
The only way that your sentence can apply is in a system of serfdom. Which is not capitalism, because the common man does not have the right to own land. In capitalism everyone owns some property. Even if you're holding cash, you "own" that cash (which is just another economic good) until you trade it for something else. In capitalism, everyone is a capitalist. So while we do have economic classes (which is unavoidable in any system), there is no "class" of capitalists. Even the poorest of the poor, who we may say own zero capital because they're homeless and naked, can still barter their labour or rely on the temporary charity of others to acquire a limited amount of capital and go from there.
"No, socialism is a system based on the exchange of labor and the democratic control of capital. State socialism, as practiced by Marxists, is not the only variety. Anarchists are socialists."
You'll have to elaborate because "democratic control of capital" reads as being another way to say "state control of capital". Just because a government is democratic by nature, does not make it a "non-state".
"No arrangement made in the face of an overwhelming imbalance of power is "voluntary". So long as a state-backed minority class of "owners" controls the vast majority of economic resources, referring to the wage slavery that all but the most skilled workers have to sell themselves into as "voluntary" is a sick joke."
You can not have wage slavery without debt. And I will be the first person to agree that the current hodge-podge hybrid system of fiat currency, government regulation and special interest lobbying makes that a much closer reality than I am comfortable with. However, the only thing that has to do with capitalism is based on the fact that the foundation of our system is capitalist in nature. It's certainly anything but laissez-faire. We haven't had "true", or laissez-faire, capitalism in a very long time. At least not since prior to 1913.
I think you just made my point for me, actually. You said "state-backed minority class of 'owners'". Thus you know damned well that what you are describing is not laissez-faire capitalism. We have some socialism (government-run post office is a good example, and a lot of public property), various forms of intervention (trade barriers in the form of tariffs, real-estate regulation, licensure requirements and special treatment for labour unions) and a debt-based fiat currency that's controlled by a single, secretive independent organization with lots of special privileges that are unique to it (I'm talking about the federal reserve for anyone who isn't following).
In laissez-faire capitalism employment options open up much more than they are in our current messed up system. That's not to say that everyone would have access to their dream job. But involuntary unemployment becomes much rarer.
Yet even in our system, all employment contracts are voluntary. That doesn't mean that people don't have to work to survive, but that will be the case in any system. Every single human being prefers leisure to labour. So in a make-believe system where no one has to work production and technological progress will grind to a halt. Capitalism, more specifically laissez-faire capitalism, is simply private ownership of property and voluntary exchange. It's the distribution of labour without any controlling force influencing the way that people chose to distribute said labour. It's people who work together, via agreements, when both parties perceive a benefit to the agreement. The only way that you can have slavery, even wage slavery, is when there is a presence of force. In modern times that force is almost always the government.
"Just another reason why capitalism fails. The public-facing side of any single company is considered far more important than the life of any individual. Way to go mankind."
Whoa hold on there. I was in agreement with everything you said up until this last paragraph.
Capitalism isn't "business rules". It's private ownership of property (and capital in general, hence "capitalism"). How does you being able to own your own land and property have anything to do with what you were bitching about ?
In capitalism every single individual is both a producer and consumer. Even if you just hold a "9 - 5" you sell your labour in exchange for a mutually-agreed-upon paycheck. It's a voluntary exchange. Capitalism also applies just as well to bartering your labour to a friend in exchange for a couple of beers and hospitality for the day. This is all as opposed to socialism in which the government controls all of the means of exchange and production. Where two individuals are not allowed to enter into a voluntary exchange without the government's approval.
What you pointed out is that, in this case we have a problem with the JUDICIAL system. Whereby it takes far too long, and is too costly, for an individual to seek justice against someone who anonymously did them harm. How does that relate to capitalism at all ? You're complaining about a GOVERNMENT institution. So what's your solution, get the government involved in EVERYTHING ? Yeah that will fix the problem!/sarc (please note that I'm most certainly not saying that we should privatize the judicial system, only that the problem here has nothing to do with private ownership of capital and the means of production).
If the justice is more easily attainable for the rich, then we need to fix the judicial system. The judicial system has never been private. It's always been government-run. So why should the rich be able to afford justice more than a poor person ? It has nothing to do with business, and it shouldn't. None of these problems have anything to do with capitalism.
In economics labour is considered scarce, in general. Sure, the unemployment rate may be alarming and suggests otherwise, but if you've ever been on the hiring side and had to sift through applications and interview person after person you'll find that finding qualified people is quite difficult. Sometimes the company's expectations may be unreasonable, and they'll have to offer higher wages, perks and/or expect fewer hours. But the point is that there is never a surplus of people who are "right for the job". This speaks just as much to education as it does to the company's high expectations.
This is why in industries that see a surplus of labour are usually in unskilled areas. Janitors, burger flippers etc.
Education always increases the supply of labour and thus the amount of production. Milton Friedman, who was against almost any kind of government intervention or control, favoured government-mandated education (not to be confused with government-controlled, ie: public, education) because of this. He called it the "neighbourhood effect", the idea being that you benefit indirectly from your neighbhour being educated.
If a maglev train between Vegas and LA is worthwhile, then the private sector should step up and take care of it. The railroads weren't built by tax dollars. There were technical monopolies that were created but, like all such monopolies, they were short-lived and had to compete with improvements in other areas of transportation. While monopolies are always evil, I would rather have a private monopoly than a government one, because in every instance where the government has a monopoly it exercises it's force to keep competition out. Private companies will try to do the same, but they do so by appealing to the government. We hear about that all the time here on/. where private telecos appeal to the government to regulate because "competition will hurt our industry and cost Americans jobs!"
I don't want to see tax payer money go to GM or Chrysler either. I want the natural market forces to take care of these things. "Natural market forces" simply refers to human action. People exchange for the sake of improving their conditions. If an industry is not well, it's because people no longer see any value in what it offers. Which is just another way of saying that what they offer no longer improves people's conditions. Or at least it does so less than other things that are in direct competition. Government is very good at forcing things down people's throats. It uses foreceful coercion to "save" industries that are "toxic" (ie: valueless). The maglev train smells like the exact same situation. If people actually want it, if there is value in it, if they are willing to pay for it then the people will spend their own money and resources, and take their own risks to make it happen. If the government "needs" to take action in order for it to get done, that usually means that it has no subjective-value in the market.
If you make the investments less risky you encourage more risky investment. If governments are giving loans to people that implies that they're giving loans to those people to whom the private sector deemed are "bad investments". So you end up using tax payer dollars to fund projects that are more likely to fail than most. Sure, one out of every thousand or tends of thousands investments might pay off. But obviously such lending is not a sustainable policy otherwise the banks would be doing it.
There might be something to be said for banks not lending right now. The Fed is lending to them to encourage that. The government is borrowing from the Fed to meet it's spending plans. Meanwhile the Fed is printing like mad to make all of these loans which is hurting everyone because it debases the currency. What we really need to do is return the good ol' days where capital came from savings rather than debt. For the last 100 years we've been piling debt upon debt and shifting the burden to our children. Some day it's all going to fall down and the government will have to find some way to liquidate the debt, or it's going to have to repudiate and face the consequences.
Infrastructure is a special case because currently it's almost all public. My issue with spending for infrastructure is that the infrastructure has to be NEEDED and WANTED by the public. If those conditions are satisfied (and people are willing to pay the taxes for it) then there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending on infrastructure.
The problem is when the infrastructure is built to "create jobs" or "stimulate the economy". In these cases projects that no one was asking for have to be invented. Like the MagLev train that's part of the stimulus bill. Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America... but we don't represent the vast majority of the people who don't even know what a maglev train is. Not to mention this is the type of project that costs ridiculous amounts of money and is going to do very little to stimulate anything because, as the law of the universe states, every government dollar spent is a dollar taxed or borrowed. So every government job "created" is a job indirectly "destroyed" somewhere else.
I'm not rich. But ideologically speaking I believe that laissez-faire capitalism is the best way to relieve poverty, ensure liberty and minimize conflict.
What the US has right now is NOT laissez-faire capitalism. It is a hodge-podge of welfare, centrally-controlled money, regulation, trade restrictions and spending projects.
I won't bother going into the philosophy or economic arguments. Those posts are becoming unpopular on/. during this period of newly revived confidence in the US government (I genuinely hope that works out). You can read Ludwig Von Mises' Human Action or the For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray M. Rothbard or The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul if you want an alternative point of view to balance the "Capitalism is all about making the rich richer and the poor poorer!" belief.
All I will say is that when government tries to control or influence the way that people behave, interact and trade with one another an environment is created that promotes conflict. Conflict is at odds with human cooperation. And cooperation is necessary for technological and social progress. Government influence is exactly the sort of thing that has lead to "rich getting richer and poor getting poorer". In a truly free market monopolies become extremely rare and short-lived. An environment is created where there are no deliberate obstacles prevent voluntary cooperation among individuals (contracts).
People will behave the same no matter what system they live in. The difference is how much forceful control their government exercises over them. If you think that conditions will improve regarding poverty, liberty and conflict in a system of tight government control then pick up a history book and then read Human Action.
Abusing your monopoly ? What does that mean ? Setting prices higher than people are willing to pay ? In that case then people will go without your product / service.
Monopolies are a problem when the monopoly controls a resource that people need. People end up paying higher than they would have to if there were competition. Monopoly is a problem in the sense that people have to make do with a good or service that could be of better quality if competition were present. Monopoly also keeps prices higher than they would be in a state of competition but, as already pointed out, not TOO high because then people would do without. Take diamonds for example. People still buy diamonds even though DeBeers has a monopoly, but they don't really need them and many chose to go without.
If the monopoly is over a resource that people really need to survive, like water (pretend for a second that a monopoly over water is possible), then people will use forceful coercion to get the prices lower (government intervention or, if that is unattainable then a violent revolt may take place to seize control of the resource and put it into public hands). The only exception is a publicly-owned monopoly. In such an instance the illusion is created that the state is keeping prices as low as they possibly can since the state, allegedly, has the public's best interests in mind. Of course, economics teaches us that only in a state of competition do prices become as low as possible.
You can make the argument that Windows Desktops are/were something that people really needed. You can also make the argument that if the prices were higher then people would have gone without and desktop computing would have grown at a much slower rate. I still know people who are adamant that they do not need a computer and will never buy one.
I think you're confusing significant market share with monopoly.
Monopoly means market dominance. Lack of alternatives. No competition, what-so-ever.
There may still be a case for lack of perceived competition, but I don't even think that's true anymore. I'm still surprised by the amount of people who ask me about Linux, and just about every single person who asks me about computers these days asks what I think about Apple.
To be honest, looking back I'm not sure that Microsoft ever had a monopoly at all. They may have engaged in anti-competitive practices in an attempt to secure a monopoly. Perhaps if government had not intervened they would have succeeded... but I really doubt it. I think Apple changed everything (in case it needs to be pointed out I'm not a fan-boi, I don't own any Apple products at all). If Apple could step in and begin competing and take over small parts of the market, even if only a fraction; if Firefox could step in to the arena and start taking over browser share then I'm compelled to believe that there was never a monopoly at all.
A monopoly prevents entry into it's industry. Entry was obviously possible. The fact that MS still has a substantial market share is irrelevant. No one has ever said that competing in the market is easy.
Also, for what it's worth: in studying economics I've learned that there are 3 sources of monopoly: 1) technical considerations (where limited local resources make monopoly almost inevitable - local utilities, telephone lines etc.) 2) private collusion to fix prices and 3) government supported in the way of tariffs, licensure restrictions and various regulations that prevent entry into an industry.
Microsoft had none of those. MAYBE technical considerations by a stretch. But usually technical monopolies are not long-lasting. New technological advances in improved efficiency, or new sources of resources change the players. I think Google and Apple are good examples of such disturbances to a technical monopoly, assuming that Microsoft's case qualifies as one.
Sorry for the double post but there's one other point I meant to make and forgot to. It's also possible that increased unemployment was IN SPITE of increased technological progress and not BECAUSE of it.
There's a ton of factors that can negatively influence the economy and lead to unemployment. Minimum wage laws, foreign trade barriers, licensure and certification requirements, monetary policy, safety regulations etc. The increase in the amount of government intervention in to the market has been enormous since 1928. I'm not taking a hard stance that it has absolutely been detrimental to the economy, only offering a possible alternative explanation for the rise of unemployment.
Your post fell in to the "correlation vs. causation" trap that gets flamed on/. all the time when applied to other areas.
You raise an interesting point but I'm not sure that I agree.
ARPAnet was obviously created by the US military for it's own purposes, initially. However, networking was developed at MIT and the early adopters of ARPAnet (once it was made public) were private research institutions. Some of those institutions did/do get government grants, yet it's debatable whether or not those grants benefit the entire population on the whole (without the grants they may have to raise tuition prices but people would be paying fewer taxes).
As soon as private companies discovered the benefits of networking they jumped on board. The telecommunications networks were all privately owned.
So I think the Internet is a poor example. Obviously we can't put a price on it and obviously the government / military helped it along. It may have even conceptualized it (though I don't think I'd go that far, they didn't invent networking, they just created one of the first massive networks before others did) but private companies ran with it and as soon as the public demanded it companies went along even further.
The problem with government spending is that it may get things right every once in a while. Computers, plastics, the Internet may be examples of that and it's impossible for us to look back and say that they shouldn't have done it when we consider all of the social advantages. I'm just not convinced that the private sector wasn't already in the process of inventing those things. ENIAC was a military computer but the vacuum tubes and concepts employed to create it weren't invented by the military. They just made use of it first to satisfy an obvious immediate need. After WWII private companies all started developing and employing computers for their own purposes.
First of all, that 99% employment figure needs to be clarified. 99% of the total population ? Or of what we consider the "eligible working force" ? Because the total population would be inclusive of children, the elderly, the handicap and people who have voluntarily withheld themselves from the work force in order to, say, care for their children and families full-time etc.
In order to see how truly ridiculous the claim that machinery leads to unemployment is, we have to consider the entire history of human labour. The belief that machines cause unemployment leads to prepostorous conclusions. Not only must we be causing unemployment with every technological improvement that we make today, but early humans must have began causing it with the very first efforts to relieve themselves of toil and sweat.
You asked for specific examples:
The stocking industry in England adopted new stocking frames in the 1800's that immediately put workers out of jobs. Riots ensued and stocking frames were destroyed. However, by the end of the century the stocking industry was actually employing 100 workers for every worker that was displaced as a result of industry expansion through increased productivity (note: that's obviously not to say that the new employees were performing the same roles).
New cotton spinning machinery was invented in the 1700's. It was estimated that there was a little under 8,000 people working in the production of cotton textiles in England at that time. These workers were opposed to the introduction of the new machinery on the grounds that workers would be displaced. However, a few years later an inquiry found that the industry had exploded and that there were now over 300,000 people employed by the cotton industry.
In order to understand why employment increases consider an example:
Imagine a tailor making business suits. He employs x number of workers to make the suits. One day he adopts a machine that can do all of this work without the need for those workers. He can now make suits of either the same quality for a lower price, or better quality for the same price (or both). So he lays off his work-force.
Firstly: In the short term he has indirectly employed all of the people who researched, designed, produced and marketed that labour-saving device. Once the machine pays for itself he now has more capital as a result of increased production that he can use to either expand his business by purchasing more machines or by spending on his own personal consumption. Or maybe he'll save his money by investing it or putting it into a savings account in which the money will be used to fund other production (via bank loans) until he decides to withdraw it and use it to expand his own production.
Furthermore, if his suits cost less then every one of his customers now has more capital to spend on expanding their businesses or personal consumption.
The result is greater production and prosperity for all. People use this prosperity to start new businesses or increase their personal consumption, which indirectly goes to expand other people's businesses.
So if you want to dwell on that 99% employment figure then do some digging to see what it's really referring to. It very well may mean that people who wanted to abstain from selling their labour were unable to. Or employment statistics have since been adjusted to include people that weren't included in that 1928 statistic etc.
Source for my examples: Economics in one lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
We don't learn to live with it. We prosper from it. The old fallacy that machines replace human labour has been debunked over and over again to the point that it's really absurd that it keeps showing up again.
Yes, some industries go under and those workers find themselves displaced. No one is saying it's fair or that we shouldn't consider their losses and consider ways to help them out (although the methods employed to help them out need to be VERY carefully considered for their long-term effects on the population as a whole). Yet in the long run these machines increase production, increases employment and greater prosperity on the whole.
While it may be tempting for some to ask: "sure but the Internet is different. How does it create increased production in the music industry?", we have to consider the benefits to the entire world's production that the Internet has provided. Entire on-line industries have sprung up. Other industries have increased efficiency as a result of faster / more efficient communication and ordering processes etc. Not to mention the boost to the "independent artist industry" (for lack of a better term).
Machines are not a sacrifice. They are the ultimate achievement of the division of labour. They increase production and greater prosperity for all, for the short-term sacrifice of a few industries and jobs. We should be focusing on retraining people who have lost their jobs for vocations in new, thriving industries. Rather than trying to "save" dying industries that the market is now rejecting, which only results in a decrease of production and prosperity.
Slashdot Mirror
"Now that we got that out of the way, the question is: did this person commit a crime? IMHO he did. He did the equivalent of taking somebody's work without payment. If you disagree, consider this: You spend a year of your life developing a program, with plans to sell it for income, but instead I simply TAKE the program off bittorrent. I have stolen your labor without just compensation."
I have a very hard time following that logic. Under no natural law has the person been deprived of anything. The program is still available to him. Only because of an institutional barrier granting him forcefully-enforced exclusive ability to distribute his work can we even start to approach the deprivation argument.
Without getting into right vs. wrong (which is entirely subjective anyway), you can easily claim that presently the authority is depriving the rest of society of an artistic creation. There is no inherent natural "right" to "own" what you create. If my neighbour has a slab of stone on his driveway and I carve a statue out of it I do not own the slab. If I invent a song and sing it aloud in front of a group of people there is no natural law that would grant me the exclusive ownership over that creation.
You may argue that one would not create without such institutional deprivation but as an artist myself I would not agree. That fallacy confuses the creative genius with the entrepreneur. Under a system with no institutional monopoly on the distribution of creative works an entrepreneur would be free take measures to guard his creations if he so chooses, but in such a world creative artistic endeavours would be undertaken by creative geniuses (for the sake of creating) and entrepreneurs would concern themselves with satisfying the consumer by offering them easier access to artistic creations. Even today, with copyright, we can see the value-added bundles that entrepreneurs build around open source software.
Furthermore, the vast majority of the world's most culturally influential artistic creations were created in a world where copyright was a foreign concept. Many more well renown artists were employed by despots to create for them against their will. That implies to me that there was an institutionally-imposed deterrence against becoming a well known artist but it did not stop the creative geniuses from creating nonetheless.
Finally, you may make the argument that copyright is essential for promoting software development. That the incentives do not exist for a business to invest in the creation of new software if they do not maintain the exclusive authority to distribute it. However, in reality this ideal put into practice favours existing large enterprise at the expense of their competition. Only those companies which own huge portfolios of copyright, and possess the resources to defend those copyrights in court, benefit from the absence of competition as imposed by copyright. The creator, be him a musician or a software developer, would have an easier time promoting his/her creations and making something out of them if 3rd parties had the ability to distribute them to create and satisfy demand. Doors are created that did not exist before.
How often have we heard of new artists becoming famous thanks to the distributive power of the Internet ? Now imagine if there were no barriers preventing anyone from distributing creations online or off. Now ask yourself if copyright truly makes it any easier for you to build a profitable business creating and distributing new software. Piracy exists either way, and advertising is expensive. Plagiarism and fraud are misrepresenting products to the consumers and are vary much illegal without copyright (so a company could not distribute your work and claim that they are it's creators). Copyright actually makes it more difficult for creators and entrepreneurs to create successful business selling their creations. In the absence of copyright gaining publicity for your creations would be exponentially easier, provided that your creations are actually valuable - if they are not then copyright still does not help you. Though it may restrict everyone's options causing them to settle for inferior products due to lack of competition.
I wouldn't. Trying to sell warranties to keep costs down might be annoying. it might even be redundant in cases like that, but it helps everyone. People who don't need or want them can say "no thanks", people who really do want one pay for one, the company sees a little more on it's incoming and will be forced to lower it's prices to stay competitive.
Also, the GP didn't say how much the warranty cost. If it was a percentage of the sales price, then that lady may have thought that spending $1 on a warranty will save her $4 later on when she has to replace it. Maybe she drinks at her computer a lot and has had to replace a lot of mice and keyboards. Maybe she's had bad luck with mice breaking on her. But no, it's far more likely that she's a brainwashed zombie who can't think for herself.
Insinuating that people are somehow idiots who can't think for themselves, and that companies prey on them is WAY more insulting. I get offended as a human being when people make such claims. Those people don't consider that companies have policies that offer warranties on every tech product. That it's a way for them to compete, which ultimately lowers everyone's prices. If it weren't for competitive strategies such as that we'd all still be paying $50 per mouse like we were 10 - 15 years ago.
Meanwhile everyone has a higher cost of living because stores need to account for the higher costs of complying with such regulations (being out perfectly good inventory that comes back damaged, having to pay more for labour to deal with accepting returns and the turn-around etc.) which goes straight on to the prices.
If the majority thinks that the cost is worth it, then it doesn't matter. They're getting something for it. People just need to realize that those types of regulations don't purely help consumers and hurt businesses. They have a cost associated that everyone has to bear.
On the flip side, without those regulations you can always turn around and resell a product that you realize that you don't want. You might still take a loss, but then, you went out and bought a product you didn't really want. Personally I'd rather people who buy products that they don't want take the loss instead of everyone.
Yeah. Poor woman who can't think for herself. It's such a shame that people in general are such sheep. If only they'd realize that they're being brainwashed and have puppet strings. Free will is an illusion and we're all slaves to business who are somehow not really people or consumers like the masses. Thank heavens the customers after her got you or they'd have all been forced against their will to pay for something that they didn't want.
Could you be any more insulting to your species ?
"I never found out for sure, but I've heard that store managers receive bonuses for keeping payrolls low. My store manager was paid 63K a year while the understaffed underlings often work for minimum wages. Keep that in mind the next time you visit a drug or grocery store with 30 people in line being served by only 2 cashiers."
Oh please. Everything up until that paragraph I would buy as plausible. But do you know WHY they pay their employees so little ? Because people are willing to take the jobs at those wages. Do you know why they only have 2 cashiers working ? Because people are willing to wait in line a little longer to pay cheaper prices (otherwise Walmart would not be in business, let alone so huge).
Do you know why the employer wants to pay as little for labour as possible ? Because labour is an operational cost, just like leasing office space, buying equipment and paying for advertising etc. EVERYONE, whether you're a business owner or not, always wants to sell high and buy low. That's not greed. It's common sense. However, what people really don't get about it is that by keeping operational costs down, the prices get kept down. So while people's wages may be lower, their costs of living is also lower. Raise the wages, raise the prices. We all make more money but not really because everything costs more.
As for managers, managers are not entrepreneurs. They are hired by the owners to oversee departments and divisions. Their wages are just as much an operational cost as any other employee's. Now, sure, of course they will do what they can to get a higher pay for doing less work, just like any employee will. But in the end the entrepreneur needs to keep ALL costs down in order to compete with other businesses. You know, to stay in business.
So if the owners are paying the managers ridiculously large wages while the people actually doing the "real work" are getting cheated then the entrepreneur will not be in business very long. It will only take ONE company to pay his manager just a little less (since apparently there's so much of an inflated salary to cut into right there), and pay his employees better (he'll take all the good employees and undermine his competitors on service) and presto, he's got the market share.
Also, while people might not like the sales pitch, by selling protection plans the company is able to lower the prices of it's products to compete. It's competitors follow suit to remain competitive and, while we might have to listen to a slightly annoying 2 second sales pitch, we ALL pay less for hardware as a result.
"Abolishing them completely is a bad idea - in fact, it would make people stop using their heads."
Actually, this is fallacy.
I'm an "artist". I've written lots of songs. I've recorded, produced and released a musical album. I've written short stories. I've created paintings. In other words, I "own" lots of copyrights. Guess how much copyright has benefited me ? Absolutely nil.
My post from this point forward is going to deal exclusively with music, because that's what I know best. But I think the concepts will apply to every kind of art from movies to paintings to books. Also, I know a lot of musicians who make a decent amount of money doing studio for-hire work and playing live shows. But that has nothing to do with copyright. I'm only talking about the "creative process".
The reason for the fallacy of "copyrights encourage people to create" is that it confuses the creative genius and the entrepreneur. While I can't speak for every single artist on the planet, I can say that every single musician that I have ever known directly has never created for the sake of making money.
Sure, there is always the "dream". The dream that we will make it big and become famous rock stars. But as soon as you start talking business and economics with musicians the creative process is ruined. In fact, the majority, if not all, of the artists I know grew up saying "I'd be happy working at McDonald's my whole life if it means I can keep writing music and don't have to become a suit like my parents". In other words, the dream is considered by many to be in direct conflict with business. As soon as creating becomes a job the joy of creating is lost and writer's block ensues.
Copyright protects distributors from competitors. Guess what, competitors include the artists themselves. Most artists buy into the idea of copyright because morally they object to some greedy capitalist profiting from their work without compensating them for it. It's hard to argue with that mindset, it makes sense. However, you need to try to imagine a world without any copyright what-so-ever to see what would actually happen.
First off, in our current world no company will distribute a recording without express written consent. If a DJ or a small start-up wants to distribute music they have to go through "the channels". The channels usually mean either a) purchasing licenses from the RIAA or similar organizations or b) waiting for artists to sign up and send you their music themselves. In both cases, small businesses and artists get stiffed and the major "mainstream" distributors benefit by not having competitors enter the field.
Copyright can not make anyone like your music (all opinions about mainstream music aside). You have to be good to begin with. People have to like your stuff. Copyright doesn't help you in that regard. Most artists fail right there. But then with regards to copyright not only do you have to be a really good artist but you have to have a lot of business sense too. Because only you, or people you give permission to, can distribute your work. You have to turn your "creative process" into a full time business just to sell a few CDs. The very small amount of artists that are left at this point, the majority of them fail here too. So now we're left with a microfraction of artists who can distribute their work and actually make anywhere remotely near recouping their investment (all those years practicing, part time jobs saving to pay for gear and the studio time or home recording equipment, hiring the geek down the street to set you up with a promo web-page with mp3s and streams etc.). Copyright doesn't help in recruiting the investment, it hurts.
So what does a world without copyright look like ? Well, it is true that anyone can distribute your music and they don't have to pay you for it. But that's a good thing. It means that DJs and small Internet start-ups and entrepreneurs looking to sell compilations of indie music etc. don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of resources getting art
"The problem without copyright is how to make sure you can get back your investment on a recording. Studio time is still expensive, even though it's falling rapidly, recording an album is still quite an investment. Having copyright on the recording would guarantee a limited time (5-10 years is more than enough I think) to make up for your investment. Without copyrights the making of recordings I think will become really hard, and thus hurting the exposure of a musician. No recordings means no exposure. "
But the issue is that copyright does not ensure that you will get your investment back. It doesn't even help. At all.
Let's say that I go into the studio and invest some money to record an album, and then some 3rd party business, without my permission, decides to copy it and distribute it.
Scenario 1: They hurt me by taking credit for the work. They also hurt the consumers by misrepresenting the product. This is fraud and is very much illegal without the presence of copyright.
Scenario 2: They are unsuccessful because no one likes my creation. Copyright doesn't make people like things. So even with copyright I would not be helped at all.
Scenario 3: They are successful and make money through their venture. Lots of people like to consider this "stealing", since they're not compensating the artist. However, in actuality they have made it EASIER for me to recoup my investment by giving me new fans that I would not have had otherwise. As the artist, I will always have more credibility with fans than some 3rd party business. Yes, there are fans who just want a couple of singles for as cheap as possible. They will probably download the songs and not pay anything at all to anyone. The business who is distributing my work is probably selling to people who want large collections of songs by various artists. These people want to "discover" new music and these businesses provide them a way to do that. Furthermore, the business might be a big radio station who's DJ has found me and wants to share my work. With copyright he can't unless he contacts me first and gets my permission, the costs involved make it not worthy. Anyway these people who buy from the 3rd parties and not from me still help me indirectly by telling their friends about me etc. The "die hard" fans will always buy from ME because they want to get their work directly from the artist. They want the extra stuff that I bundle with my own CDs. These 3rd party businesses give me more of the die hard fans. Which always helps me. Copyright never helps me.
With the presence of copyright, doors close. For the artists and businesses alike. The only people who benefit from copyright are big corporations who hold a massive portfolio of copyrights and want to keep out competitors. Those competitors actually INCLUDE THE ARTISTS THEMSELVES! In fact, the artists are the primary competitors because they can always outbid the big distributors to the die hard fans who want to get their material directly from the artist, complete with all of the bonus stuff that the artist is able to package.
"The problem isn't copyright.
Other than a few Cathedral/Bazaar types, few people advocate for the total abolishment of copyright. We don't mind paying a reasonable price for good recordings. We wouldn't even mind paying per-Listening if any suitable billing system could be contrived."
The problem with copyright is that it benefits the distributors, which has never been the artists. Even with the Internet, copyright is never going to benefit the artists.
To provide some context to my opinion, I am an artist. I own the copyright to lots of works. I've recorded an album. I've written short stories. I've created many paintings. You know how much copyright has benefited me ? None.
In fact, WITHOUT copyright I would have the potential to benefit much more. Why ? Because if a radio station or a distribution company did not have to worry about copyrights and royalties I could get much more exposure, in theory. Of course it all boils down to whether or not my creations are any good. But copyright can not force people to pay money for bad music (all opinions about Britney Spears aside).
The fallacy with the concept of copyright is that it confuses the creative genius with the entrepreneur. The VAST majority of artists do not create for the sake of profiting from their work. Sure, there is always the dream. The dream that we will "make it" and be famous rock stars playing for sold out shows and having hoards of hot groupies wanting to have sex with us and die at a young age from a drug overdose. But the minute you start talking business and economics with artists you destroy the entire process of "creating" for them.
I'm in a unique position because I happen to be self-employed as well. But that hasn't enabled me to make lots of money from my work. Nor has the ability to maintain a monopoly on the distribution of my work ever been an incentive to create. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Business and art are worlds apart. While I can not speak for all artists, I know that this is true for every single musicians that I have ever had to pleasure of creating with. Some of them are pretty good at making money playing shows or doing studio work for hire, but when it comes to writing their own material, to creating, the business side of it never enters into the equation (unless they're under contract, and that has arguably destroyed more creative minds than has helped - inspiration can not be turned on with a switch and trying to do so often results in writer's block which can financially ruin an artist who is under contract).
The argument for copyright (for the artists' sake) usually boils down to this: morally speaking we don't want "greedy fat-cat rich capitalists" to be able to profit from our work without compensating us. While I can certainly understand this principle, I think that it would actually be in every artist's best interest to allow those entrepreneurs to do so. Why ? Because if the artist is lucky enough to get "picked up" and distributed, and the venture does well enough to earn the entrepreneur a profit, the artist is now famous. Without having to do a damned thing. Now, having the fame, the artist has been given a gift and can do with it as he/she pleases. They can package all of those songs that the entrepreneur is distributing sans-royalty, add a couple of new creations (one song, or some behind the scenes stuff or whatever) and then out-compete the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur has made a profit, the artist can now make a profit that he/she could not have made prior etc. Yet as long as the entrepreneurs has to worry about copyrights and royalties they will only concern themselves with those artists who are willing to enter into ridiculously one-sided contracts because the artist wants to get famous, nothing else matters.
The Internet changes very little. Yes, it is WAY easier for an artist to earn him/her-self exposure on the Internet now. However, copyright does not help that at all. It hinders it. No website can put up music without the artist's permission. So exposure for new artists is still entirely limited by how business-savy and/or lucky the artist is.
"I'm wondering why they can't just post them to multiple places - now that seems a more reasonable question to me."
I would rather they simply make the videos available on their own servers for anyone who is interested in watching and distributing them. Rather than spend tax payer money on a team who will distribute them to various free sites.
Free sites are free in terms of bandwidth, but the companies have their own business interests in mind. Only a contract with the government would force the company to keep the videos online indefinitely and not change the URLs etc. A business would have little reason to enter into such an agreement if they didn't get something sweet out of it, like an exclusive distribution deal. They'll get an ad boost too. Which will indirectly affect natural market forces. Pushing up one company at the expense of it's competition.
If the government had a team of people distributing them to various free-sites full or part time that just seems like a waste of tax dollars. If the public is interested in watching the videos they'll distribute them themselves, and they'll get up on youtube (and it's competitors, without government interference) anyway.
Well, we will never know how truly hard and expensive medicine is, since there's enough regulation in the industry to make new entry very difficult.
Of course drug research is expensive when you need to a) make sure your research is patented enough so that you have the exclusive rights to anything and everything that you research and b) make sure that you're complying with the expensive government regulations. Regulations that are pennies for a mega-corp but prohibitively expensive for a new start-up.
It's also common procedure for any big corporation to pay top dollar for retired politicians to lobby government in their in their favour. To regulate in ways that make it profitable for the existing corporations at the expense of everyone else.
Human history is full of small groups of researchers, not connected with huge pharmaceutical companies, who made important discoveries in medicine. From penicillin to the polio vaccine.
"I was under the impression that despite its horrific flaws, the current regime requires the drug researchers to seriously vouch for the (subset of) the data they present to the FDA."
Just like suing customers does not help the recording industry, killing customers is not in the best interest of the pharmaceutical companies.
There may be something to be said for drugs that treat HIV/AIDS, cancer and other diseases where the patient needs to be on medication for many years. There is also something to be said for addictive drugs and exploiting addiction to make a profit. A drug company that sells a drug that is promoted as a cure or a treatment but actually kills people or makes them sick is very bad for business.
There is a tremendous incentive for drug companies to not put out drugs that harm people. The public doesn't need FDA regulations to keep drug companies in check. We can do that ourselves through consumer watch groups, peer review and independent studies. Last I checked the government doesn't own our bodies. So responsible adults who wish to take risks in drug trials shouldn't need the government's permission to do so. FDA regulations, like almost any kind of government regulation, makes it extremely difficult for new competition by placing business (and consumer) decisions at the discretion of the regulatory body. It gives the big pharmaceutical companies a competitive advantage by limiting new entry into the industry. It plays a part in keeping drug prices high, along with patents (more government intervention that benefits a special interests).
So I think you raise a very good point. The FDA is probably what is going to prevent this project from accomplishing much.
"No, in capitalism, the capitalist class skims off the labor of producers by charging them for access to the resources that capitalists "own" and producers need to get stuff done."
How can you own labour if you can't own people ? How can you have a "class" of capitalists when everyone is able to own property ? (and note: I'm not talking about land and capital goods, specifically. Even my daughters owns capital - clothes, toys, cash etc.).
The only way that your sentence can apply is in a system of serfdom. Which is not capitalism, because the common man does not have the right to own land. In capitalism everyone owns some property. Even if you're holding cash, you "own" that cash (which is just another economic good) until you trade it for something else. In capitalism, everyone is a capitalist. So while we do have economic classes (which is unavoidable in any system), there is no "class" of capitalists. Even the poorest of the poor, who we may say own zero capital because they're homeless and naked, can still barter their labour or rely on the temporary charity of others to acquire a limited amount of capital and go from there.
"No, socialism is a system based on the exchange of labor and the democratic control of capital. State socialism, as practiced by Marxists, is not the only variety. Anarchists are socialists."
You'll have to elaborate because "democratic control of capital" reads as being another way to say "state control of capital". Just because a government is democratic by nature, does not make it a "non-state".
"No arrangement made in the face of an overwhelming imbalance of power is "voluntary". So long as a state-backed minority class of "owners" controls the vast majority of economic resources, referring to the wage slavery that all but the most skilled workers have to sell themselves into as "voluntary" is a sick joke."
You can not have wage slavery without debt. And I will be the first person to agree that the current hodge-podge hybrid system of fiat currency, government regulation and special interest lobbying makes that a much closer reality than I am comfortable with. However, the only thing that has to do with capitalism is based on the fact that the foundation of our system is capitalist in nature. It's certainly anything but laissez-faire. We haven't had "true", or laissez-faire, capitalism in a very long time. At least not since prior to 1913.
I think you just made my point for me, actually. You said "state-backed minority class of 'owners'". Thus you know damned well that what you are describing is not laissez-faire capitalism. We have some socialism (government-run post office is a good example, and a lot of public property), various forms of intervention (trade barriers in the form of tariffs, real-estate regulation, licensure requirements and special treatment for labour unions) and a debt-based fiat currency that's controlled by a single, secretive independent organization with lots of special privileges that are unique to it (I'm talking about the federal reserve for anyone who isn't following).
In laissez-faire capitalism employment options open up much more than they are in our current messed up system. That's not to say that everyone would have access to their dream job. But involuntary unemployment becomes much rarer.
Yet even in our system, all employment contracts are voluntary. That doesn't mean that people don't have to work to survive, but that will be the case in any system. Every single human being prefers leisure to labour. So in a make-believe system where no one has to work production and technological progress will grind to a halt. Capitalism, more specifically laissez-faire capitalism, is simply private ownership of property and voluntary exchange. It's the distribution of labour without any controlling force influencing the way that people chose to distribute said labour. It's people who work together, via agreements, when both parties perceive a benefit to the agreement. The only way that you can have slavery, even wage slavery, is when there is a presence of force. In modern times that force is almost always the government.
"Just another reason why capitalism fails. The public-facing side of any single company is considered far more important than the life of any individual. Way to go mankind."
Whoa hold on there. I was in agreement with everything you said up until this last paragraph.
Capitalism isn't "business rules". It's private ownership of property (and capital in general, hence "capitalism"). How does you being able to own your own land and property have anything to do with what you were bitching about ?
In capitalism every single individual is both a producer and consumer. Even if you just hold a "9 - 5" you sell your labour in exchange for a mutually-agreed-upon paycheck. It's a voluntary exchange. Capitalism also applies just as well to bartering your labour to a friend in exchange for a couple of beers and hospitality for the day. This is all as opposed to socialism in which the government controls all of the means of exchange and production. Where two individuals are not allowed to enter into a voluntary exchange without the government's approval.
What you pointed out is that, in this case we have a problem with the JUDICIAL system. Whereby it takes far too long, and is too costly, for an individual to seek justice against someone who anonymously did them harm. How does that relate to capitalism at all ? You're complaining about a GOVERNMENT institution. So what's your solution, get the government involved in EVERYTHING ? Yeah that will fix the problem! /sarc (please note that I'm most certainly not saying that we should privatize the judicial system, only that the problem here has nothing to do with private ownership of capital and the means of production).
If the justice is more easily attainable for the rich, then we need to fix the judicial system. The judicial system has never been private. It's always been government-run. So why should the rich be able to afford justice more than a poor person ? It has nothing to do with business, and it shouldn't. None of these problems have anything to do with capitalism.
In economics labour is considered scarce, in general. Sure, the unemployment rate may be alarming and suggests otherwise, but if you've ever been on the hiring side and had to sift through applications and interview person after person you'll find that finding qualified people is quite difficult. Sometimes the company's expectations may be unreasonable, and they'll have to offer higher wages, perks and/or expect fewer hours. But the point is that there is never a surplus of people who are "right for the job". This speaks just as much to education as it does to the company's high expectations.
This is why in industries that see a surplus of labour are usually in unskilled areas. Janitors, burger flippers etc.
Education always increases the supply of labour and thus the amount of production. Milton Friedman, who was against almost any kind of government intervention or control, favoured government-mandated education (not to be confused with government-controlled, ie: public, education) because of this. He called it the "neighbourhood effect", the idea being that you benefit indirectly from your neighbhour being educated.
If a maglev train between Vegas and LA is worthwhile, then the private sector should step up and take care of it. The railroads weren't built by tax dollars. There were technical monopolies that were created but, like all such monopolies, they were short-lived and had to compete with improvements in other areas of transportation. While monopolies are always evil, I would rather have a private monopoly than a government one, because in every instance where the government has a monopoly it exercises it's force to keep competition out. Private companies will try to do the same, but they do so by appealing to the government. We hear about that all the time here on /. where private telecos appeal to the government to regulate because "competition will hurt our industry and cost Americans jobs!"
I don't want to see tax payer money go to GM or Chrysler either. I want the natural market forces to take care of these things. "Natural market forces" simply refers to human action. People exchange for the sake of improving their conditions. If an industry is not well, it's because people no longer see any value in what it offers. Which is just another way of saying that what they offer no longer improves people's conditions. Or at least it does so less than other things that are in direct competition. Government is very good at forcing things down people's throats. It uses foreceful coercion to "save" industries that are "toxic" (ie: valueless). The maglev train smells like the exact same situation. If people actually want it, if there is value in it, if they are willing to pay for it then the people will spend their own money and resources, and take their own risks to make it happen. If the government "needs" to take action in order for it to get done, that usually means that it has no subjective-value in the market.
If you make the investments less risky you encourage more risky investment. If governments are giving loans to people that implies that they're giving loans to those people to whom the private sector deemed are "bad investments". So you end up using tax payer dollars to fund projects that are more likely to fail than most. Sure, one out of every thousand or tends of thousands investments might pay off. But obviously such lending is not a sustainable policy otherwise the banks would be doing it.
There might be something to be said for banks not lending right now. The Fed is lending to them to encourage that. The government is borrowing from the Fed to meet it's spending plans. Meanwhile the Fed is printing like mad to make all of these loans which is hurting everyone because it debases the currency. What we really need to do is return the good ol' days where capital came from savings rather than debt. For the last 100 years we've been piling debt upon debt and shifting the burden to our children. Some day it's all going to fall down and the government will have to find some way to liquidate the debt, or it's going to have to repudiate and face the consequences.
Infrastructure is a special case because currently it's almost all public. My issue with spending for infrastructure is that the infrastructure has to be NEEDED and WANTED by the public. If those conditions are satisfied (and people are willing to pay the taxes for it) then there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending on infrastructure.
The problem is when the infrastructure is built to "create jobs" or "stimulate the economy". In these cases projects that no one was asking for have to be invented. Like the MagLev train that's part of the stimulus bill. Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America ... but we don't represent the vast majority of the people who don't even know what a maglev train is. Not to mention this is the type of project that costs ridiculous amounts of money and is going to do very little to stimulate anything because, as the law of the universe states, every government dollar spent is a dollar taxed or borrowed. So every government job "created" is a job indirectly "destroyed" somewhere else.
I'm not rich. But ideologically speaking I believe that laissez-faire capitalism is the best way to relieve poverty, ensure liberty and minimize conflict.
What the US has right now is NOT laissez-faire capitalism. It is a hodge-podge of welfare, centrally-controlled money, regulation, trade restrictions and spending projects.
I won't bother going into the philosophy or economic arguments. Those posts are becoming unpopular on /. during this period of newly revived confidence in the US government (I genuinely hope that works out). You can read Ludwig Von Mises' Human Action or the For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray M. Rothbard or The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul if you want an alternative point of view to balance the "Capitalism is all about making the rich richer and the poor poorer!" belief.
All I will say is that when government tries to control or influence the way that people behave, interact and trade with one another an environment is created that promotes conflict. Conflict is at odds with human cooperation. And cooperation is necessary for technological and social progress. Government influence is exactly the sort of thing that has lead to "rich getting richer and poor getting poorer". In a truly free market monopolies become extremely rare and short-lived. An environment is created where there are no deliberate obstacles prevent voluntary cooperation among individuals (contracts).
People will behave the same no matter what system they live in. The difference is how much forceful control their government exercises over them. If you think that conditions will improve regarding poverty, liberty and conflict in a system of tight government control then pick up a history book and then read Human Action.
Abusing your monopoly ? What does that mean ? Setting prices higher than people are willing to pay ? In that case then people will go without your product / service.
Monopolies are a problem when the monopoly controls a resource that people need. People end up paying higher than they would have to if there were competition. Monopoly is a problem in the sense that people have to make do with a good or service that could be of better quality if competition were present. Monopoly also keeps prices higher than they would be in a state of competition but, as already pointed out, not TOO high because then people would do without. Take diamonds for example. People still buy diamonds even though DeBeers has a monopoly, but they don't really need them and many chose to go without.
If the monopoly is over a resource that people really need to survive, like water (pretend for a second that a monopoly over water is possible), then people will use forceful coercion to get the prices lower (government intervention or, if that is unattainable then a violent revolt may take place to seize control of the resource and put it into public hands). The only exception is a publicly-owned monopoly. In such an instance the illusion is created that the state is keeping prices as low as they possibly can since the state, allegedly, has the public's best interests in mind. Of course, economics teaches us that only in a state of competition do prices become as low as possible.
You can make the argument that Windows Desktops are/were something that people really needed. You can also make the argument that if the prices were higher then people would have gone without and desktop computing would have grown at a much slower rate. I still know people who are adamant that they do not need a computer and will never buy one.
I think you're confusing significant market share with monopoly.
Monopoly means market dominance. Lack of alternatives. No competition, what-so-ever.
There may still be a case for lack of perceived competition, but I don't even think that's true anymore. I'm still surprised by the amount of people who ask me about Linux, and just about every single person who asks me about computers these days asks what I think about Apple.
To be honest, looking back I'm not sure that Microsoft ever had a monopoly at all. They may have engaged in anti-competitive practices in an attempt to secure a monopoly. Perhaps if government had not intervened they would have succeeded ... but I really doubt it. I think Apple changed everything (in case it needs to be pointed out I'm not a fan-boi, I don't own any Apple products at all). If Apple could step in and begin competing and take over small parts of the market, even if only a fraction; if Firefox could step in to the arena and start taking over browser share then I'm compelled to believe that there was never a monopoly at all.
A monopoly prevents entry into it's industry. Entry was obviously possible. The fact that MS still has a substantial market share is irrelevant. No one has ever said that competing in the market is easy.
Also, for what it's worth: in studying economics I've learned that there are 3 sources of monopoly: 1) technical considerations (where limited local resources make monopoly almost inevitable - local utilities, telephone lines etc.) 2) private collusion to fix prices and 3) government supported in the way of tariffs, licensure restrictions and various regulations that prevent entry into an industry.
Microsoft had none of those. MAYBE technical considerations by a stretch. But usually technical monopolies are not long-lasting. New technological advances in improved efficiency, or new sources of resources change the players. I think Google and Apple are good examples of such disturbances to a technical monopoly, assuming that Microsoft's case qualifies as one.
Sorry for the double post but there's one other point I meant to make and forgot to. It's also possible that increased unemployment was IN SPITE of increased technological progress and not BECAUSE of it.
There's a ton of factors that can negatively influence the economy and lead to unemployment. Minimum wage laws, foreign trade barriers, licensure and certification requirements, monetary policy, safety regulations etc. The increase in the amount of government intervention in to the market has been enormous since 1928. I'm not taking a hard stance that it has absolutely been detrimental to the economy, only offering a possible alternative explanation for the rise of unemployment.
Your post fell in to the "correlation vs. causation" trap that gets flamed on /. all the time when applied to other areas.
You raise an interesting point but I'm not sure that I agree.
ARPAnet was obviously created by the US military for it's own purposes, initially. However, networking was developed at MIT and the early adopters of ARPAnet (once it was made public) were private research institutions. Some of those institutions did/do get government grants, yet it's debatable whether or not those grants benefit the entire population on the whole (without the grants they may have to raise tuition prices but people would be paying fewer taxes).
As soon as private companies discovered the benefits of networking they jumped on board. The telecommunications networks were all privately owned.
So I think the Internet is a poor example. Obviously we can't put a price on it and obviously the government / military helped it along. It may have even conceptualized it (though I don't think I'd go that far, they didn't invent networking, they just created one of the first massive networks before others did) but private companies ran with it and as soon as the public demanded it companies went along even further.
The problem with government spending is that it may get things right every once in a while. Computers, plastics, the Internet may be examples of that and it's impossible for us to look back and say that they shouldn't have done it when we consider all of the social advantages. I'm just not convinced that the private sector wasn't already in the process of inventing those things. ENIAC was a military computer but the vacuum tubes and concepts employed to create it weren't invented by the military. They just made use of it first to satisfy an obvious immediate need. After WWII private companies all started developing and employing computers for their own purposes.
First of all, that 99% employment figure needs to be clarified. 99% of the total population ? Or of what we consider the "eligible working force" ? Because the total population would be inclusive of children, the elderly, the handicap and people who have voluntarily withheld themselves from the work force in order to, say, care for their children and families full-time etc.
In order to see how truly ridiculous the claim that machinery leads to unemployment is, we have to consider the entire history of human labour. The belief that machines cause unemployment leads to prepostorous conclusions. Not only must we be causing unemployment with every technological improvement that we make today, but early humans must have began causing it with the very first efforts to relieve themselves of toil and sweat.
You asked for specific examples:
The stocking industry in England adopted new stocking frames in the 1800's that immediately put workers out of jobs. Riots ensued and stocking frames were destroyed. However, by the end of the century the stocking industry was actually employing 100 workers for every worker that was displaced as a result of industry expansion through increased productivity (note: that's obviously not to say that the new employees were performing the same roles).
New cotton spinning machinery was invented in the 1700's. It was estimated that there was a little under 8,000 people working in the production of cotton textiles in England at that time. These workers were opposed to the introduction of the new machinery on the grounds that workers would be displaced. However, a few years later an inquiry found that the industry had exploded and that there were now over 300,000 people employed by the cotton industry.
In order to understand why employment increases consider an example:
Imagine a tailor making business suits. He employs x number of workers to make the suits. One day he adopts a machine that can do all of this work without the need for those workers. He can now make suits of either the same quality for a lower price, or better quality for the same price (or both). So he lays off his work-force.
Firstly: In the short term he has indirectly employed all of the people who researched, designed, produced and marketed that labour-saving device. Once the machine pays for itself he now has more capital as a result of increased production that he can use to either expand his business by purchasing more machines or by spending on his own personal consumption. Or maybe he'll save his money by investing it or putting it into a savings account in which the money will be used to fund other production (via bank loans) until he decides to withdraw it and use it to expand his own production.
Furthermore, if his suits cost less then every one of his customers now has more capital to spend on expanding their businesses or personal consumption.
The result is greater production and prosperity for all. People use this prosperity to start new businesses or increase their personal consumption, which indirectly goes to expand other people's businesses.
So if you want to dwell on that 99% employment figure then do some digging to see what it's really referring to. It very well may mean that people who wanted to abstain from selling their labour were unable to. Or employment statistics have since been adjusted to include people that weren't included in that 1928 statistic etc.
Source for my examples: Economics in one lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
We don't learn to live with it. We prosper from it. The old fallacy that machines replace human labour has been debunked over and over again to the point that it's really absurd that it keeps showing up again.
Yes, some industries go under and those workers find themselves displaced. No one is saying it's fair or that we shouldn't consider their losses and consider ways to help them out (although the methods employed to help them out need to be VERY carefully considered for their long-term effects on the population as a whole). Yet in the long run these machines increase production, increases employment and greater prosperity on the whole.
While it may be tempting for some to ask: "sure but the Internet is different. How does it create increased production in the music industry?", we have to consider the benefits to the entire world's production that the Internet has provided. Entire on-line industries have sprung up. Other industries have increased efficiency as a result of faster / more efficient communication and ordering processes etc. Not to mention the boost to the "independent artist industry" (for lack of a better term).
Machines are not a sacrifice. They are the ultimate achievement of the division of labour. They increase production and greater prosperity for all, for the short-term sacrifice of a few industries and jobs. We should be focusing on retraining people who have lost their jobs for vocations in new, thriving industries. Rather than trying to "save" dying industries that the market is now rejecting, which only results in a decrease of production and prosperity.