the customer is NOT free to buy someone else's product. That is exactly what it means if a company has a monopoly position in a market.
How come millions of people use Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and every other operating system on the planet if they "NOT free to buy someone else's product"? Is there a secret police that will punish you if you refuse to use Microsoft's OS?
These are the definitions that I was using in my post: Monopoly: when a company, by convincing people that it is in their self-interest to buy the company's product, comes to dominate a market. A monopoly in a free market is still subjected to market forces because if it tries to abuse their customers, it will become profitable for others to invest in building a competing product. Microsoft is an example. Coersive Monopoly: when a company, usually by leveraging a government, physically forces all competition to stop competing. Free from market forces, it is can exploit as much as it pleases, and people must either put up with the abuse or do without the product. Examples include: The Dutch and British East India Companies, AT&T, Government -sponsered Power companies.
Once they have nearly the entire market there is no motivation to "get more of the market". The company no longer cares what the customer wants. Now their motivations are (A)maximizing how much the existing customers pay, (B)preventing customers from leaving, and (C)taking over new markets.
A company's motivation is never "to get more of the market." It is always a company's goal to make a profit; otherwise no one would invest in that company. I bet a company that charged $5.00 for a quality car that cost $10,000 to make would very quickly "get more of the market"; however, this would not be very good business sense. "But," you say, "Once they have driven all the other auto manufacurers out of business, they will be free to exploit up the wazoo!" On the contrairy, although it would be stupid for anyone to try to compete with someone who sold new cars for $5.00, as soon as that person raises prices at or above previous levels, it will become profitable for other people to invest that market. The more they try to "exploit", the quicker they will loose their monopoly position. Having a (non-coersive) monopoly does not protect a company from market forces; if the value they provided people turns to harm, people will turn to other choices, which will rapidly be created if they do not exist already (people with capital are always looking for ways to make a profit). A corollary to making a profit is satisfying the customer; if you cannot suite his needs, he will seek another way to get what he wants (creating an opportunity for profit and competition).
When Internet explorer came out Netscape was considered by most people to be the better browser.
Also, when Internet Explorer came out, not many people used it. IE began to pull even (or ahead, depending on who you ask) at about v4.0, which, coincidentally, is when Netscape began to loose the war.
Microsoft has carefully kept prices maintainably inflated, hiding the costs in the price of hardware purchases...
If Microsoft's "price inflation" is not enough to make people care about it, then, on the whole, how could you claim that it is harming consumers? I do not consider Window's price ($100-$200) inflated because it provides me great value--reasonable stability, speed, and ease of use and access to software created by Windows developers. If I was not satisfied with what I was getting for my money, I would choose another product and so would nearly every other consumer.
ITS THEIR SOFTWARE! They can do whatever they want to it -- people are free to chose another operating system. There was no physical coercion going on at all. All Microsoft did was modify their product, and free and mostly reasonable people chose to buy it. Modifying their own APIs for their own befit (to promote their own software) was their right, and it did not infringe on the rights of competitors or consumers. It is not a right to develop software for someone else's API and force the developer of the API to bend over backwards to accommodate you when it is in his best interests to change it. Microsoft violated no ones rights; therefore, it is unjust and wrong to violate Microsoft's rights.
Indeed, Microsoft used its monopoly position to harm its competitors, yet I have already established that because it obtained its monopoly freely (a remarkable feat), nobody's rights were violated. The things which Microsoft has done do not harm, and actually (at least some of them, such as bundling IE) may have benefitted the vast majority of people. This, I think, explains why the vast majority of people use Microsoft's products. The reason that competitors to Windows have been so far only marginally successful is because Microsoft's actions have generally not been harmful enough to enough people to convince them that it is in their best interests to switch platforms.
What is against the law is for a monopoly to abuse it's power and status by behaving in certain ways (like using unfair practices to retain it's status, or using it's leverage in one market to dominate other related markets).
What is so "unfair" about leveraging your position in one market to dominate another. As long as the system is capitalism, people are free to ignore you, and buy someone else's product (if they suspect that you are not worthy of their trust and do not wish to lock themselves into your product). As long as there is freedom, rational people cannot be exploited by anything but a government sponsored monopoly (which Microsoft was not). If I offer you an outrageously unfair contract, you can simply walk away. If I commit fraud (a form of steeling) I should be punished, but as long as I remain within the bounds of not infringing upon your rights of liberty and property, the government has no moral justification for punishment.
In a truly free market, a monopoly cannot exploit people. The only way to get a monopoly in a truly free market is to provide more value so that you can convince other free, rational people and corporations to use your product. It is a fact of reality that changing an operating system or platform costs lots of resources. Microsoft obtained its monopoly with windows and office in a mostly free market--by providing enough value . Their supposed "crime" came by using people's dependence on their platform, which was freely obtained, to pitch other products. These products, such as internet explorer, may be slightly inferior to the competition, or they might not be, depending on who you ask. Obviously they were not deficient enough to make people migrate off the windows platform in significant numbers. If people are so irrational as to not look out for their own self interests by wallowing in ignorance and stupidity, no one (including Microsoft) should be forced to suffer in order to save them from reality, which will naturally hold them accountable for their dumb decisions (if you waste money on ineffective software, your profits will be less, and you might go out of business)
The concept of intrinsic rights is unfortunately just an academic idea. Life has no respect for rights. Your only right is what you have the power cause. If you get eaten by a tiger, or bitten by a coral snake, or sucked under by an eddy while taking a bath, so sorry, right to life, uh huh. Thus the only old pithy maxim, might makes right. It's 100% true.
In your examples you showed how just because morality says something ought to be does not actually make it so. The proper way to summerize this would be "right does not make might." The conclusion that "might makes right" is completely unwarranted by your evidence.
The idea that "might makes right" is, in fact a lie. Abraham Lincoln once asked someone, "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?" The person replied "Five," and to this Lincoln said, "Wrong. Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Morality and Rights exist independently of the actual state of things at a given time and dictate the direction toward which men ought to strive. Without morality, man is reduced to following his whims like a beast. The consensus might determine what people will actually do, but the right thing to do will remain the same weather people choose to recognize it or not. What if the ad hoc morality of our society dictated that it was OK for me to kill you, and the only thing that kept me from doing so was my own recognition of a higher moral standard? Would you still be trying to convince me that morality was a pointless philosophical exercise then?
"we have the right to a capitalist democracy" why? "because freedom is a right" why? "because we live in a capitalist democracy
The answer to the question "why is freedom a right" is not "because we live in a capitalist democracy." Once again, you rely on the false premise that "might makes right." I would say in response something like "because man's rational mind requires certain things to function, and one of those things is freedom."
Is it fair to be punished for something you're not responsible for? Is it fair to reward someone for something they're not responsible for? Thats exactly what happens when you deny education to a child born to a poor family.
Actually, its not. The right at stake is the right of the creator to dispose of the wealth that he has earned/created as he sees fit. Not surprisingly, the rich person has decided to share his wealth with his children, and that is his right to do so. By not receiving that which you have not earned, you are not being "punished." Although the rich child is rewarded just for being born in the right family, morally you cannot stop this because to do so would violate the parent's property rights.
This whole philosophical idea of intrinsic sacrosanct rights is such bullshit. you have yet to present any evidence that this is the case. Your "circular agreement" example isn't really created by the idea of intrinsic rights, but rather by the assumption that might makes right. Your false dichotomy of "fairness vs. morality" really is quite pathetic. What is fairness if it not derived from justice, which comes from morality?
"We all think everyone has a right to an education, so we constructed systems to give everyone access to those services. We also think everyone should have access to clean water, so we have municipal water utilities."
Education and clean water are NOT fundamental or basic rights. Rights are concepts that flow from man's nature as a rational being. The rational part of man's mind requires certain conditions to function--namely, the freedom to exist (life), the freedom to act (liberty), and the freedom to the products of those actions (property). If these conditions are denied, man lives on the level of a beast. If these conditions are supplied man can flourish. All true rights can be traced back to these fundamental rights. For example, you may note that "Freedom of Religion" is not specifically enumerated in the three fundamental rights, but it is, in fact, a corollary of liberty, or the freedom to do as one pleases while not infringing on the liberty of others. In order for the system of rights to be self-consistent, there can be no right that conflicts another. Indeed, when properly defined, none of the fundamental rights do conflict. Because they belong to all men, it is implied that my right to act as I please cannot include forcing you to act in a certain way. The function of government is to maximize the protection of these fundamental rights.
Now that rights have been defined, it is easy to see why there can be no fundamental "right" to education or clean water. Schools and water networks cost money and resources, and those resources must come from somewhere. If everybody has a right to an education weather they have earned the resources that the education will cost, than such a "right" would necessarily imply the violation of a fundamental right-property. In fact, the very idea that a person has a right to something that they have not earned is a perversion of the ideal of justice.
Now that I have said all this you may think that I am opposed to public education. I am not. I justify public education as a form of national defense. One of the biggest threats to freedom are large groups of people being irrational. Because of the democratic nature of our government, if large segments of the population choose not to think, than individual liberties are threatened. Racism is such a phenomenon. Public education is our defense against this threat, and its goal is to empower and nurture people's ability to think.
In the same moral theory that is behind the idea freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the words "all Men are created equal, [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is the moral theory under which capitalism is ethical.
Something tells me that you've heard about these theories before, but just that you didn't make the connection that they have to capitalism.
The three fundamental rights of every man are Life, Liberty and Property. Justice is defined as the enforcement of these rights. The only extent to which your fundamental rights can be deprived is to protect the fundamental rights of everyone, including yourself. For example, it is moral to force people to pay taxes (deprive them of property) to pay for police and military, which will protect the rights of everybody from thugs and foreign invaders. In the case of life and property, when I say that government should "protect" them, I mean that government should "keep other people from physically taking away your freedom to create and preserve your own property and life." The only economic system the stems from the recognition of these rights is capitalism. Socialism and Communism are especially immoral because they outright deny the existence of property as a right. Anarchism is wrong because it does not take any steps to protect these rights.
There you have it: a crash coarse in why capitalism is the only ethical and moral economic system. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
>As opposed to chanting "Government can't solve my problems" or "Only the market can solve my problems"?
I would say chant "Everyone can solve his own problems"
>So what happens if I have cancer, but no money for treatment?
The same thing that happens when you want an iPod and you don't have enough money-- you can choose to do with out the iPod or appeal to others for assistance, which they may or may not choose to give you. In the case of the iPod, other people are probably not going to find your need very important, but I bet that if you had cancer, people would be much more likely to help you. There are free voluntary charity organizations for things like that. You're probably going to say , "there isn't enough private money to help all the people with cancer," and to that I would say: "tough." It is not one of your fundamental rights to get cancer treatment (see the bold part of the my third paragraph). It is everyone's right to choose how to manage the products of his own mind (property). You don't have a right to force others to give up their property no matter how pressing your need is (unless your need is the protection of one of your fundamental rights).
> The key features windows is missing do NOT really affect consumers that much.
If this is indeed true as you claim (it may not be, but you say it is), than you just explained why Microsoft as a monopoly among the average joe is in fact _not_ really doing much harm to the average joe.
I would agree with the original poster in that the only truly harmful monopolies are government sponsored monopolies. I find that Windows XP is more than adequate for the tasks that I need to do during the day, so I use it. I prefer Phoenix over IE because I like its tabbed browsing and open development process. I am really impressed by Mac OS X, so the next computer I buy will be a Mac. Microsoft has not physically forced me from making these decisions. If Microsoft does not provide enough incentive for people to keep using Windows, than most people, assuming they are free and (for the most part) rational, will choose something else, and the monopoly will no longer have a monopoly
>1. Software dev is very very time consuming and expensive. >3. Its a pain changing.
These are all true statements about reality that do not change no matter how antitrust laws are enforced. If these facts contribute to Microsoft's monopoly, are you going hold Microsoft accountable for taking advantage of... reality? Everyone else is subjected to that same reality. If it takes another person a lot of time and money to develop a piece of software, than it probably took Microsoft a lot of time and money to develop its software. Many people avoid buying the latest and greatest technology because the up-front cost of change is too great (even if in the end, they would be better off with the change). The same is true of software. Microsoft had to provide enough value in their products to get over that resistance to change and get most people to use them in the first place. Why shouldn't other companies face the same reality?
Show me an example of a monopoly that developed in a truly free market that abuses its monopoly power to harm people, and I'll show you why it did not develop in a free market or why it does/can not abuse its monopoly power.
You seem to think that Libertarianism is the same thing as "states rights." I would like to venture a libertarian view on the subject: there is no such thing as states rights (or worker's rights or rights of the diabled or minority rights or.. ). The only rights that exist are individual rights, which belong to _every_ individual reguardless of how you group them. These are enumerated: life liberty and property. The mission of any government (national, state or local) is to protect the individual rights of its citizens, nothing more, nothing less. A bunch of "independent" states bickering over arbitrary ways to take away people's rights is not protecting individual rights. Libertariansim is fundamentally a morality based on individual rights. Thus, I don't think you are correct in your claim that Libertarianism does not work because the idea of "state's rights" proved unworkable.
I am free to do whatever the hell I want, and vote for whomever I want--but the only way to get someone I want in political office is to find a bunch of other free individuals and get all of us to agree on who's the best person for the job
How is that you are supposed to "find" these individuals? Through an act of God. Promoting and expressing your views to people in a meaningful way almost necessarily requires the expenditure of money. To restrict people's ability to use their _own_ money to finance the spreading of political ideas (speech) is a clear violation an individual's fundamental property and free speech rights.
The politicians (and lawyers) in a our republic have made it their business to sacrifice people's rights to others in the form of welfare-state laws and other looting, don't you think that people will want to influence that process to avoid getting screwed by the government? The problem is not that people are trying to influence the way that politicians desecrate our individual liberties, but that the government is allowed to take the freedoms away in the first place! There is no moral way for a politician to sacrifice people's rights, no matter weather he accepts bribes or not. Campaign finance reform is just another slide down the slippery slope towards statism.
In its founding the United States is the only moral country in history. No country ever has ever had as good of a track record as the United States in protecting individual freedoms. Certainly, we've had our failings (the New Deal, "War on Poverty", Vietnam, slavery, segregation, our unprincipled foreign policy today...), and America is well on its way to descending to the level of the rest of the world in the desecration of human rights, but if you look at the big picture of United States history and compare it to the history of the rest of the world, you will see a sharp contrast. From the very beginning, our founding fathers knew what they were doing, when the subjugated society to moral law through a system of individual rights. This system is in danger of collapse, but the morally superior system of ethics (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) on which this country is based had never been implemented on such a grand scale anywhere else or in any other time.
First of all, I hardly think "humanity" as a whole, worldwide, benefits from the capitalist ventures here in the US.
What I meant is that the _principle_ of capitalism and freedom, which has been implemented to the furthest extent here in the United States has been the source of the prosperity that the United States and other western nations have experienced. The United States would still be in the tribal state of the Third World if it rejected freedom and capitalism at its creation. The best thing that the United States can do for the poorer nations is to help them establish moral and freedom-protecting governments that will provide the framework for individuals of that country to create wealth.
There are actually many obvious examples to the contrary.
One of the most common of these "obvious" examples is how many western corporations "exploit" the citizens of poorer countries by building factories. Compared to more prosperous nations, which have been experiencing the benefits of capitalism longer, the workers in these factories make much less. Socialists condemn this, but little notice is given to the fact that these workers are enormously better off then they would have been if the capitalist had not chosen to invest his money in the factory.
>Competition for resources is the result of the protection of SOME peoples property
This is absolutely false. Capitalism requires that _every_ man, rich or poor, competent or incompetent , be able to decide how to dispose of the products of his mind. "Exploitation" implies physical force, which is the exclusive domain of the government in an ordered society.
>You see, the WHOLE world belongs to the people that live on it.
If the wealth and prosperity sprouted spontaneously from the earth, regardless of the activities of man, than this doctrine that wealth belongs to all would make sense. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Wealth in its most elementary form is created by the mental and physical energies of _individuals_. One of the most basic freedoms that man requires for a proper existence is the freedom to control the products of his own mind and body---without that freedom, his actions become meaningless, and he is reduced to the level of a sacrificial animal on the altar of socialism. At this level of existence, productive achievement is pointless, and the net prosperity of all of society's member's are handicapped. You beleive that each individual's achievement belongs to "everybody." Unfortunately, there is no such entity as "everybody", only a number of individuals. So who is to decide who gets what? Such a system lowers man to his worst level of existence: sacrificing others to himself. Weather such a process involves tribal gangs killing each other, fighting over the scarce wealth, or lobbyists and pressure groups pushing for the passage of laws that benefit themselves at others detriment, the result is the same. Mankind becomes a group of crabs in a bucket, with no individual able to excel without the others pulling him back down in to a sub-human existence. Such was the state of affairs of mankind for most of history, and this is what socialists, fascists and others of their type are advocating a return two. One does not have the right to unearned wealth (which necessarily must be looted from its producer). This is the most destructive idea ever inflicted upon humanity.
For America to be as prosperous as it is, other people are going to have to be extremely poor.
The great thing about capitalism is that this statement is not true. One person's gain does not mean another's loss because the only way a person can gain wealth is to create/earn it.
And what's really funny, is that while "America" is extremely prosperous, only the top 20% really see that. The rest do OK, but are constantly getting beaten down by the top 20%.
Even the poorest people in America are immeasurable more prosperous than the rest of the world. The degree to which countries implement capitalism and protect people's rights directly relates to the degree of prosperity n that country.
Remember in elementary school how they said to share, and not beat up your neighbor? Why does that work in school, but not geopolitics?
Voluntary sharing and charity are not prohibited by capitalism, only "sharing" at the point of a gun. It seems to me that it is the socialists who advocate the looting of wealth that need to be reminded not to beat up people.
>Markets are easily manipulated [by whom?]and the true idea of a completely free market will never happen [why not?].
Let me answer those implied questions. The only thing that can kill a free market is government medleing. The reason why a completely free market would be extremely difficult to acheive is because of ideologies that permit and encourage people to sacrafice (with physical force through government) other people's rights.
>If there were no regulation, our world would be an over-exploited toxic dump.
Also, the Great Depression nevery would have happened, prices would be lower on every product you can imagine, and the general prosperity of humanity would be immeasureably greater.
I share most, but not all, views of libertarians, so I will venture a response:
Defense against a foreign invader is one of the primary responsibilities of government (the other two being criminal and civil law). September 11th made it clear that we were not doing enough to protect ourselves from these foreign threats; therefore, more spending (in a general sense) is probably a good idea. A missile defense system would address an important security concern, and would probably be a good investment (but I could see how a libertarian might oppose it if he thought defense dollars could be better spent somewhere else).
On Iraq, I think the issue is very unclear--most people don't have the access to the classified information needed to make an educated judgement. However, it is clear that Saddam Hussein is a despotic tyrant who has not respect for the rights of his people; therefore, his regime has no fundamental right to exist. If it became in our best interests (more on that later) to destroy his government, than there is no moral argument to stop us. On "interests", the only moral purpose of a government is to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens; therefore, the only moral interest that could possibly justify war with Iraq would be the defense of the citizens of the United States from terrorists, weapons of mass destruction or other infringements on life and liberty. Therefore, going to war in order to extort oil from Iraq would be immoral. I am confident that Bush would only go to war with Iraq if it were critical to protecting national security.
Government is an institution that holds a monopoly of physical force. The only moral use of this monopoly is to prevent others from initiating the use of physical force to infringe upon other's rights. Pacifism, therefore, would also be an irresponsible use of this monopoly because it would also result in the infringement of fundamental rights.
>Unfortunately, most people seem to be far too unenlightened to be able to envision an alternative. And I fear they are FAR, FAR to unenlightened to even consider a society where people actually cared for one another, and helped one another...eliminating competition for resources, and hence the root of almost all crime. But, I could be way too much of an idealist. Or just plain wrong.
Why do socialists and other statists get a monopoly on the term "enlightened"? It seems to me that the people that advocate "eliminating competition for resources" are the ones with their heads in the sand. The root of nearly all of humanity's troubles, contrairy to your claim, comes from the doctrine that it is alright to sacrafice some people to others by depriving them of fundamental human rights. Competition for resources, a consequense of the protection of people's freedom (specifically, the freedom to the products of their own mind, or property rights), is the reason humanity is so much more prosperous then 500 years ago. It is the amoral doctrine of the socialist/communist/collectivist axis that wants to destroy the source of our prosperity and return the tribal days of the pre-enlightenment.
>Anarchy would be a pretty sweet idea, except that it CANNOT ever possibly exist on this planet.
Anarchy is just as wrong as socialism. In anarchy, there is no government to protect individual rights--physical force remains an integral aspect of human relations, just as in socialism, except in anarchy, anybody can choose to use it, not just beurocrats.
>You have to remember that what most people want out of an operating system is the GUI.
I would go even further: most people just want applications out of their operating system. Weather that application is a database, word processor, e-mail or a browser, the GUI or operating system is about as important as what kind of grout is between their bathroom tiles.
I see all these screenshots of all these people running word and office on linux with wine (flawlessley, they say). As a user of Worperfect Office for linux and windows, I would say that wordprocessing for linux has definately arrived, but with spreadsheets and presentations, there is a long way to go (there is progress, though). As a linux novice who sees the task of tweaking with WINE as daunting, if not impossible, i would like to see an easy-to-use version of wine that installs MS office and all the pre-tweaked wine stuff automatically when supplied with an MS office CD (allowing users to point to a windows partition to use the original windows.dlls). Many companies/users who might consider linux allready own licences to MS office, so such a program would greatly simplify migration to linux. Oh well, that's just my two cents-- please don't flame me 'cause this is my first post.
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the customer is NOT free to buy someone else's product. That is exactly what it means if a company has a monopoly position in a market.
How come millions of people use Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and every other operating system on the planet if they "NOT free to buy someone else's product"? Is there a secret police that will punish you if you refuse to use Microsoft's OS?
These are the definitions that I was using in my post:
Monopoly: when a company, by convincing people that it is in their self-interest to buy the company's product, comes to dominate a market. A monopoly in a free market is still subjected to market forces because if it tries to abuse their customers, it will become profitable for others to invest in building a competing product. Microsoft is an example.
Coersive Monopoly: when a company, usually by leveraging a government, physically forces all competition to stop competing. Free from market forces, it is can exploit as much as it pleases, and people must either put up with the abuse or do without the product. Examples include: The Dutch and British East India Companies, AT&T, Government -sponsered Power companies.
Once they have nearly the entire market there is no motivation to "get more of the market". The company no longer cares what the customer wants. Now their motivations are (A)maximizing how much the existing customers pay, (B)preventing customers from leaving, and (C)taking over new markets.
A company's motivation is never "to get more of the market." It is always a company's goal to make a profit; otherwise no one would invest in that company. I bet a company that charged $5.00 for a quality car that cost $10,000 to make would very quickly "get more of the market"; however, this would not be very good business sense. "But," you say, "Once they have driven all the other auto manufacurers out of business, they will be free to exploit up the wazoo!" On the contrairy, although it would be stupid for anyone to try to compete with someone who sold new cars for $5.00, as soon as that person raises prices at or above previous levels, it will become profitable for other people to invest that market. The more they try to "exploit", the quicker they will loose their monopoly position. Having a (non-coersive) monopoly does not protect a company from market forces; if the value they provided people turns to harm, people will turn to other choices, which will rapidly be created if they do not exist already (people with capital are always looking for ways to make a profit). A corollary to making a profit is satisfying the customer; if you cannot suite his needs, he will seek another way to get what he wants (creating an opportunity for profit and competition).
When Internet explorer came out Netscape was considered by most people to be the better browser.
Also, when Internet Explorer came out, not many people used it. IE began to pull even (or ahead, depending on who you ask) at about v4.0, which, coincidentally, is when Netscape began to loose the war.
Microsoft has carefully kept prices maintainably inflated, hiding the costs in the price of hardware purchases...
If Microsoft's "price inflation" is not enough to make people care about it, then, on the whole, how could you claim that it is harming consumers? I do not consider Window's price ($100-$200) inflated because it provides me great value--reasonable stability, speed, and ease of use and access to software created by Windows developers. If I was not satisfied with what I was getting for my money, I would choose another product and so would nearly every other consumer.
-Andrew
ITS THEIR SOFTWARE! They can do whatever they want to it -- people are free to chose another operating system. There was no physical coercion going on at all. All Microsoft did was modify their product, and free and mostly reasonable people chose to buy it. Modifying their own APIs for their own befit (to promote their own software) was their right, and it did not infringe on the rights of competitors or consumers. It is not a right to develop software for someone else's API and force the developer of the API to bend over backwards to accommodate you when it is in his best interests to change it. Microsoft violated no ones rights; therefore, it is unjust and wrong to violate Microsoft's rights.
Indeed, Microsoft used its monopoly position to harm its competitors, yet I have already established that because it obtained its monopoly freely (a remarkable feat), nobody's rights were violated. The things which Microsoft has done do not harm, and actually (at least some of them, such as bundling IE) may have benefitted the vast majority of people. This, I think, explains why the vast majority of people use Microsoft's products. The reason that competitors to Windows have been so far only marginally successful is because Microsoft's actions have generally not been harmful enough to enough people to convince them that it is in their best interests to switch platforms.
-Andrew
What is against the law is for a monopoly to abuse it's power and status by behaving in certain ways (like using unfair practices to retain it's status, or using it's leverage in one market to dominate other related markets).
What is so "unfair" about leveraging your position in one market to dominate another. As long as the system is capitalism, people are free to ignore you, and buy someone else's product (if they suspect that you are not worthy of their trust and do not wish to lock themselves into your product). As long as there is freedom, rational people cannot be exploited by anything but a government sponsored monopoly (which Microsoft was not). If I offer you an outrageously unfair contract, you can simply walk away. If I commit fraud (a form of steeling) I should be punished, but as long as I remain within the bounds of not infringing upon your rights of liberty and property, the government has no moral justification for punishment.
-Andrew
In a truly free market, a monopoly cannot exploit people. The only way to get a monopoly in a truly free market is to provide more value so that you can convince other free, rational people and corporations to use your product. It is a fact of reality that changing an operating system or platform costs lots of resources. Microsoft obtained its monopoly with windows and office in a mostly free market--by providing enough value . Their supposed "crime" came by using people's dependence on their platform, which was freely obtained, to pitch other products. These products, such as internet explorer, may be slightly inferior to the competition, or they might not be, depending on who you ask. Obviously they were not deficient enough to make people migrate off the windows platform in significant numbers. If people are so irrational as to not look out for their own self interests by wallowing in ignorance and stupidity, no one (including Microsoft) should be forced to suffer in order to save them from reality, which will naturally hold them accountable for their dumb decisions (if you waste money on ineffective software, your profits will be less, and you might go out of business)
-Andrew
The concept of intrinsic rights is unfortunately just an academic idea. Life has no respect for rights. Your only right is what you have the power cause. If you get eaten by a tiger, or bitten by a coral snake, or sucked under by an eddy while taking a bath, so sorry, right to life, uh huh. Thus the only old pithy maxim, might makes right. It's 100% true.
In your examples you showed how just because morality says something ought to be does not actually make it so. The proper way to summerize this would be "right does not make might." The conclusion that "might makes right" is completely unwarranted by your evidence.
The idea that "might makes right" is, in fact a lie. Abraham Lincoln once asked someone, "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?" The person replied "Five," and to this Lincoln said, "Wrong. Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Morality and Rights exist independently of the actual state of things at a given time and dictate the direction toward which men ought to strive. Without morality, man is reduced to following his whims like a beast. The consensus might determine what people will actually do, but the right thing to do will remain the same weather people choose to recognize it or not. What if the ad hoc morality of our society dictated that it was OK for me to kill you, and the only thing that kept me from doing so was my own recognition of a higher moral standard? Would you still be trying to convince me that morality was a pointless philosophical exercise then?
"we have the right to a capitalist democracy"
why?
"because freedom is a right"
why?
"because we live in a capitalist democracy
The answer to the question "why is freedom a right" is not "because we live in a capitalist democracy." Once again, you rely on the false premise that "might makes right." I would say in response something like "because man's rational mind requires certain things to function, and one of those things is freedom."
Is it fair to be punished for something you're not responsible for? Is it fair to reward someone for something they're not responsible for? Thats exactly what happens when you deny education to a child born to a poor family.
Actually, its not. The right at stake is the right of the creator to dispose of the wealth that he has earned/created as he sees fit. Not surprisingly, the rich person has decided to share his wealth with his children, and that is his right to do so. By not receiving that which you have not earned, you are not being "punished." Although the rich child is rewarded just for being born in the right family, morally you cannot stop this because to do so would violate the parent's property rights.
This whole philosophical idea of intrinsic sacrosanct rights is such bullshit.
you have yet to present any evidence that this is the case. Your "circular agreement" example isn't really created by the idea of intrinsic rights, but rather by the assumption that might makes right. Your false dichotomy of "fairness vs. morality" really is quite pathetic. What is fairness if it not derived from justice, which comes from morality?
-Andrew
"We all think everyone has a right to an education, so we constructed systems to give everyone access to those services. We also think everyone should have access to clean water, so we have municipal water utilities."
Education and clean water are NOT fundamental or basic rights. Rights are concepts that flow from man's nature as a rational being. The rational part of man's mind requires certain conditions to function--namely, the freedom to exist (life), the freedom to act (liberty), and the freedom to the products of those actions (property). If these conditions are denied, man lives on the level of a beast. If these conditions are supplied man can flourish. All true rights can be traced back to these fundamental rights. For example, you may note that "Freedom of Religion" is not specifically enumerated in the three fundamental rights, but it is, in fact, a corollary of liberty, or the freedom to do as one pleases while not infringing on the liberty of others. In order for the system of rights to be self-consistent, there can be no right that conflicts another. Indeed, when properly defined, none of the fundamental rights do conflict. Because they belong to all men, it is implied that my right to act as I please cannot include forcing you to act in a certain way. The function of government is to maximize the protection of these fundamental rights.
Now that rights have been defined, it is easy to see why there can be no fundamental "right" to education or clean water. Schools and water networks cost money and resources, and those resources must come from somewhere. If everybody has a right to an education weather they have earned the resources that the education will cost, than such a "right" would necessarily imply the violation of a fundamental right-property. In fact, the very idea that a person has a right to something that they have not earned is a perversion of the ideal of justice.
Now that I have said all this you may think that I am opposed to public education. I am not. I justify public education as a form of national defense. One of the biggest threats to freedom are large groups of people being irrational. Because of the democratic nature of our government, if large segments of the population choose not to think, than individual liberties are threatened. Racism is such a phenomenon. Public education is our defense against this threat, and its goal is to empower and nurture people's ability to think.
-Andrew
>In what theory is capitalism ethical?
In the same moral theory that is behind the idea freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the words "all Men are created equal, [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is the moral theory under which capitalism is ethical.
Something tells me that you've heard about these theories before, but just that you didn't make the connection that they have to capitalism.
The three fundamental rights of every man are Life, Liberty and Property. Justice is defined as the enforcement of these rights. The only extent to which your fundamental rights can be deprived is to protect the fundamental rights of everyone, including yourself. For example, it is moral to force people to pay taxes (deprive them of property) to pay for police and military, which will protect the rights of everybody from thugs and foreign invaders. In the case of life and property, when I say that government should "protect" them, I mean that government should "keep other people from physically taking away your freedom to create and preserve your own property and life." The only economic system the stems from the recognition of these rights is capitalism. Socialism and Communism are especially immoral because they outright deny the existence of property as a right. Anarchism is wrong because it does not take any steps to protect these rights.
There you have it: a crash coarse in why capitalism is the only ethical and moral economic system. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
>As opposed to chanting "Government can't solve my problems" or "Only the market can solve my problems"?
I would say chant "Everyone can solve his own problems"
>So what happens if I have cancer, but no money for treatment?
The same thing that happens when you want an iPod and you don't have enough money-- you can choose to do with out the iPod or appeal to others for assistance, which they may or may not choose to give you. In the case of the iPod, other people are probably not going to find your need very important, but I bet that if you had cancer, people would be much more likely to help you. There are free voluntary charity organizations for things like that. You're probably going to say , "there isn't enough private money to help all the people with cancer," and to that I would say: "tough." It is not one of your fundamental rights to get cancer treatment (see the bold part of the my third paragraph). It is everyone's right to choose how to manage the products of his own mind (property). You don't have a right to force others to give up their property no matter how pressing your need is (unless your need is the protection of one of your fundamental rights).
-Andrew
> The key features windows is missing do NOT really affect consumers that much.
... reality? Everyone else is subjected to that same reality. If it takes another person a lot of time and money to develop a piece of software, than it probably took Microsoft a lot of time and money to develop its software. Many people avoid buying the latest and greatest technology because the up-front cost of change is too great (even if in the end, they would be better off with the change). The same is true of software. Microsoft had to provide enough value in their products to get over that resistance to change and get most people to use them in the first place. Why shouldn't other companies face the same reality?
If this is indeed true as you claim (it may not be, but you say it is), than you just explained why Microsoft as a monopoly among the average joe is in fact _not_ really doing much harm to the average joe.
I would agree with the original poster in that the only truly harmful monopolies are government sponsored monopolies. I find that Windows XP is more than adequate for the tasks that I need to do during the day, so I use it. I prefer Phoenix over IE because I like its tabbed browsing and open development process. I am really impressed by Mac OS X, so the next computer I buy will be a Mac. Microsoft has not physically forced me from making these decisions. If Microsoft does not provide enough incentive for people to keep using Windows, than most people, assuming they are free and (for the most part) rational, will choose something else, and the monopoly will no longer have a monopoly
>1. Software dev is very very time consuming and expensive.
>3. Its a pain changing.
These are all true statements about reality that do not change no matter how antitrust laws are enforced. If these facts contribute to Microsoft's monopoly, are you going hold Microsoft accountable for taking advantage of
Show me an example of a monopoly that developed in a truly free market that abuses its monopoly power to harm people, and I'll show you why it did not develop in a free market or why it does/can not abuse its monopoly power.
-Andrew
You seem to think that Libertarianism is the same thing as "states rights." I would like to venture a libertarian view on the subject: there is no such thing as states rights (or worker's rights or rights of the diabled or minority rights or .. ). The only rights that exist are individual rights, which belong to _every_ individual reguardless of how you group them. These are enumerated: life liberty and property. The mission of any government (national, state or local) is to protect the individual rights of its citizens, nothing more, nothing less. A bunch of "independent" states bickering over arbitrary ways to take away people's rights is not protecting individual rights. Libertariansim is fundamentally a morality based on individual rights. Thus, I don't think you are correct in your claim that Libertarianism does not work because the idea of "state's rights" proved unworkable.
I am free to do whatever the hell I want, and vote for whomever I want--but the only way to get someone I want in political office is to find a bunch of other free individuals and get all of us to agree on who's the best person for the job
How is that you are supposed to "find" these individuals? Through an act of God. Promoting and expressing your views to people in a meaningful way almost necessarily requires the expenditure of money. To restrict people's ability to use their _own_ money to finance the spreading of political ideas (speech) is a clear violation an individual's fundamental property and free speech rights.
The politicians (and lawyers) in a our republic have made it their business to sacrifice people's rights to others in the form of welfare-state laws and other looting, don't you think that people will want to influence that process to avoid getting screwed by the government? The problem is not that people are trying to influence the way that politicians desecrate our individual liberties, but that the government is allowed to take the freedoms away in the first place! There is no moral way for a politician to sacrifice people's rights, no matter weather he accepts bribes or not. Campaign finance reform is just another slide down the slippery slope towards statism.
In its founding the United States is the only moral country in history. No country ever has ever had as good of a track record as the United States in protecting individual freedoms. Certainly, we've had our failings (the New Deal, "War on Poverty", Vietnam, slavery, segregation, our unprincipled foreign policy today...), and America is well on its way to descending to the level of the rest of the world in the desecration of human rights, but if you look at the big picture of United States history and compare it to the history of the rest of the world, you will see a sharp contrast. From the very beginning, our founding fathers knew what they were doing, when the subjugated society to moral law through a system of individual rights. This system is in danger of collapse, but the morally superior system of ethics (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) on which this country is based had never been implemented on such a grand scale anywhere else or in any other time.
First of all, I hardly think "humanity" as a whole, worldwide, benefits from the capitalist ventures here in the US.
What I meant is that the _principle_ of capitalism and freedom, which has been implemented to the furthest extent here in the United States has been the source of the prosperity that the United States and other western nations have experienced. The United States would still be in the tribal state of the Third World if it rejected freedom and capitalism at its creation. The best thing that the United States can do for the poorer nations is to help them establish moral and freedom-protecting governments that will provide the framework for individuals of that country to create wealth.
There are actually many obvious examples to the contrary.
One of the most common of these "obvious" examples is how many western corporations "exploit" the citizens of poorer countries by building factories. Compared to more prosperous nations, which have been experiencing the benefits of capitalism longer, the workers in these factories make much less. Socialists condemn this, but little notice is given to the fact that these workers are enormously better off then they would have been if the capitalist had not chosen to invest his money in the factory.
>Competition for resources is the result of the protection of SOME peoples property
This is absolutely false. Capitalism requires that _every_ man, rich or poor, competent or incompetent , be able to decide how to dispose of the products of his mind. "Exploitation" implies physical force, which is the exclusive domain of the government in an ordered society.
>You see, the WHOLE world belongs to the people that live on it.
If the wealth and prosperity sprouted spontaneously from the earth, regardless of the activities of man, than this doctrine that wealth belongs to all would make sense. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Wealth in its most elementary form is created by the mental and physical energies of _individuals_. One of the most basic freedoms that man requires for a proper existence is the freedom to control the products of his own mind and body---without that freedom, his actions become meaningless, and he is reduced to the level of a sacrificial animal on the altar of socialism. At this level of existence, productive achievement is pointless, and the net prosperity of all of society's member's are handicapped. You beleive that each individual's achievement belongs to "everybody." Unfortunately, there is no such entity as "everybody", only a number of individuals. So who is to decide who gets what? Such a system lowers man to his worst level of existence: sacrificing others to himself. Weather such a process involves tribal gangs killing each other, fighting over the scarce wealth, or lobbyists and pressure groups pushing for the passage of laws that benefit themselves at others detriment, the result is the same. Mankind becomes a group of crabs in a bucket, with no individual able to excel without the others pulling him back down in to a sub-human existence. Such was the state of affairs of mankind for most of history, and this is what socialists, fascists and others of their type are advocating a return two. One does not have the right to unearned wealth (which necessarily must be looted from its producer). This is the most destructive idea ever inflicted upon humanity.
For America to be as prosperous as it is, other people are going to have to be extremely poor.
The great thing about capitalism is that this statement is not true. One person's gain does not mean another's loss because the only way a person can gain wealth is to create/earn it.
And what's really funny, is that while "America" is extremely prosperous, only the top 20% really see that. The rest do OK, but are constantly getting beaten down by the top 20%.
Even the poorest people in America are immeasurable more prosperous than the rest of the world. The degree to which countries implement capitalism and protect people's rights directly relates to the degree of prosperity n that country.
Remember in elementary school how they said to share, and not beat up your neighbor? Why does that work in school, but not geopolitics?
Voluntary sharing and charity are not prohibited by capitalism, only "sharing" at the point of a gun. It seems to me that it is the socialists who advocate the looting of wealth that need to be reminded not to beat up people.
>Markets are easily manipulated [by whom?]and the true idea of a completely free market will never happen [why not?].
Let me answer those implied questions. The only thing that can kill a free market is government medleing. The reason why a completely free market would be extremely difficult to acheive is because of ideologies that permit and encourage people to sacrafice (with physical force through government) other people's rights.
>If there were no regulation, our world would be an over-exploited toxic dump.
Also, the Great Depression nevery would have happened, prices would be lower on every product you can imagine, and the general prosperity of humanity would be immeasureably greater.
I share most, but not all, views of libertarians, so I will venture a response:
Defense against a foreign invader is one of the primary responsibilities of government (the other two being criminal and civil law). September 11th made it clear that we were not doing enough to protect ourselves from these foreign threats; therefore, more spending (in a general sense) is probably a good idea. A missile defense system would address an important security concern, and would probably be a good investment (but I could see how a libertarian might oppose it if he thought defense dollars could be better spent somewhere else).
On Iraq, I think the issue is very unclear--most people don't have the access to the classified information needed to make an educated judgement. However, it is clear that Saddam Hussein is a despotic tyrant who has not respect for the rights of his people; therefore, his regime has no fundamental right to exist. If it became in our best interests (more on that later) to destroy his government, than there is no moral argument to stop us. On "interests", the only moral purpose of a government is to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens; therefore, the only moral interest that could possibly justify war with Iraq would be the defense of the citizens of the United States from terrorists, weapons of mass destruction or other infringements on life and liberty. Therefore, going to war in order to extort oil from Iraq would be immoral. I am confident that Bush would only go to war with Iraq if it were critical to protecting national security.
Government is an institution that holds a monopoly of physical force. The only moral use of this monopoly is to prevent others from initiating the use of physical force to infringe upon other's rights. Pacifism, therefore, would also be an irresponsible use of this monopoly because it would also result in the infringement of fundamental rights.
>Unfortunately, most people seem to be far too unenlightened to be able to envision an alternative. And I fear they are FAR, FAR to unenlightened to even consider a society where people actually cared for one another, and helped one another...eliminating competition for resources, and hence the root of almost all crime. But, I could be way too much of an idealist. Or just plain wrong.
Why do socialists and other statists get a monopoly on the term "enlightened"? It seems to me that the people that advocate "eliminating competition for resources" are the ones with their heads in the sand. The root of nearly all of humanity's troubles, contrairy to your claim, comes from the doctrine that it is alright to sacrafice some people to others by depriving them of fundamental human rights. Competition for resources, a consequense of the protection of people's freedom (specifically, the freedom to the products of their own mind, or property rights), is the reason humanity is so much more prosperous then 500 years ago. It is the amoral doctrine of the socialist/communist/collectivist axis that wants to destroy the source of our prosperity and return the tribal days of the pre-enlightenment.
>Anarchy would be a pretty sweet idea, except that it CANNOT ever possibly exist on this planet.
Anarchy is just as wrong as socialism. In anarchy, there is no government to protect individual rights--physical force remains an integral aspect of human relations, just as in socialism, except in anarchy, anybody can choose to use it, not just beurocrats.
>You have to remember that what most people want out of an operating system is the GUI.
I would go even further: most people just want applications out of their operating system. Weather that application is a database, word processor, e-mail or a browser, the GUI or operating system is about as important as what kind of grout is between their bathroom tiles.
I see all these screenshots of all these people running word and office on linux with wine (flawlessley, they say). As a user of Worperfect Office for linux and windows, I would say that wordprocessing for linux has definately arrived, but with spreadsheets and presentations, there is a long way to go (there is progress, though). As a linux novice who sees the task of tweaking with WINE as daunting, if not impossible, i would like to see an easy-to-use version of wine that installs MS office and all the pre-tweaked wine stuff automatically when supplied with an MS office CD (allowing users to point to a windows partition to use the original windows .dlls). Many companies/users who might consider linux allready own licences to MS office, so such a program would greatly simplify migration to linux. Oh well, that's just my two cents-- please don't flame me 'cause this is my first post.