The funny thing is that most people won't. Only those with strong feelings attached to the matter will.
Yep, I won't force someone to use a service I prefer just because I prefer it, no matter how much better I think it is. I want the same respect from others.
I realize that the Austrian School of economics doesn't put too much stock into that sort of analysis, but it works for any perfectly competive markets (not that computer software is a perfect competition).
If you know something about the Austrian Economic principles, you will be aware that your premise of "perfect competition" is what is impossible. That which depends on an impossible premise is therefore false.
you have to realize that we wouldn't have the infrastructure to support industry that we have today without them.
Why?
I agree that things certainly would not be the same as now, but why must I allow that the present infrastructure is optimal? Why must I allow that the present infrastructure is even preferable to what otherwise might have been built?
there are some industries that are far too risky and too expensive to start up.
This is a bald assertion with neither logical or factual evidence to back it up. Nuclear power plants are an excellent counter-example. Something hideously expensive to build, only paying off over decades, yet the only reason they are not being built is because of the government regulatory burden that makes it impossible.
We wouldn't have satellites today without massive government investment in launch capacity.
Your argument is specious. Maybe the deployment might have been delayed, because government (spending other peoples money) had the resources to waste on sub-standard technology for the task. However, communications satellites themselves are private, run at a profit, put up there at great expense because of that profitability. It would have happened eventually just like the oceans had communications cables, at massive costs and risks, run privately.
In the mean time, our incomes have been garnished, our grandchildren's grandchildren mortgaged, and for something that would have been accomplished anyway. Tell me again how much I benefit. Tell my granddaughter who will be paying for your conveniences.
Go look for my first-level posting entitled "False Headline".
And no, don't ever bother to dispute a statement if you can simply bemoan the person stating it. That would require more neurons than a Microsoft TCO study.
Good sir, the telecom market entry price is has been dropping like a stone, ever since it was "deregulated" to some extent. Those areas, such as local telephone service, where government granted monopolies are still the rule rather than the exception is where little to no innovation exists.
If you're actually interested in why the "free market" functions better than a regulated one, you are welcome to read the materials available on the Ludwig von Mises Institute home page.
It is in fact a mathematical model, a logically provable statement that a free market will be more efficient than a command-based one.
I do find this statement interesting:
As long as there are people who are willing to fuck over other people for their own good, we need regulation.
Good God Why Would You Trust Such People With The Power Of Government? Or does being in government somehow make people saints? By your own words you state that you are concerned about the evil tendencies of others, yet you put into their hands the power to kill you at will. This is irrational.
On the government monopoly on force. You've almost got it. The government monopoly is not on force per se, or it would be illegal for me to defend myself (such as in England). What government reserves to itself is the power to initiate force.
For example, if I decide I do not like the new terms of a credit card agreement, I can cancel my contract with that credit card company. Any charges, of course, I am liable for because I voluntarily entered into the contract in the first place and made the purchases.
Enter government. The IRS changes its rules every year. If I decide I do not like the new terms, well, too bad. Government may unilaterally change the rules, the "social contract" as it were, at will and I have no recourse. If I grew hemp, and let's say government decided one day that hemp was forbidden. They come and put me out of business for doing, today, what was perfectly legal yesterday.
That is called "initiation of force". Private security, militia, silly guys in black pajamas, are certainly all legal but only if the force used is defensive or "respose" rather than "initiation".
My second objection is to your inherent assumption about consumer awareness and freedom of choice: that people will be aware of 'blue ones' and that they will buy them if they are available.
I do understand what you mean, no matter how awful your example. A "free market" is not utopia. The good guys do not always win. As someone else recently posted, a "free market" is like evolution. It's dirty, dangerous, and it takes time, but it always tends toward efficiency because in order to profit every endeavor must strive toward the lowest costs of doing business in order to keep their margins as high as possible.
Yes, indeed, people do want to flush their toilets and have their lights work and their phones function. That is why there is a market for utilities. You have not given me any example or specific reason as to why a government providing those services is more efficient than private efforts, yet I see around me every day example after example of private delivery of such important items as food, fuel, clothing, shelter, and not just to city dwellers but to every person everywhere. It takes serious effort to find somewhere not an easy trip to the nearest grocery store. Yet there is no "department of food distribution".
That government (such as the town I live in, damn them) has taken upon itself to run the electricity, water, gas, garbage utilities, &etc, does not mean they do it better. It means it is illegal for anyone else to do it. Or, for such as garbage, even if I get a private trash collector I still have to pay the city for the service I do not use. Or the post office prosecuting people for using FedEd and violating the legal monopoly on "first class mail". We're back to that initiation of force thing. They deliberately make it difficult to not use their service, even if it is not outright illegal.
In regards to your last sentence... "is unsound and, quite honestly, rather naive. It just isn't that simple."
This is the argument of someone convinced that they can use the force of law "for your own good". It doesn't matter if there is no crime being committed, no one harmed or defrauded. In your opinion it's "unsound" and "naive", and therefore you feel justified in forcing your opinion on everyone by force of law.
So what is sacred to you? What do you have that you think it is beyond the proper power of government to regulate? Now, why should I respect that if you show no such respect for others? And that is why regulation doesn't work, because opinions differ.
First, all other things being equal, if you decrease the price of something you increase the demand. In healthcare, that means more people will use more resources (doctor time, medical facilities, etc). The resources are used that would not be used otherwise, and must be paid for.
By limiting prices, shortages are created. Without the opportunity to make a profit, no one will produce (or even know to produce) the item in demand. As an example, there are more astoundingly expensive MRI machines in Orange County, California, than in the entire country of Canada.
Regulation reduces variety. There is no way to know what procedures, medicines, devices have not been created because of the suppression of opportunity that regulation entails.
But of course, deregulation is not less expensive for those who choose to use the expensive services, as opposed to inexpensive commodity services: physicians as opposed to surgeons, herbal remedies as opposed to cutting-edge limited application drugs.
Reading the article, the problem is not one of deregulation. The problem is entrenched telecommunications "monopolies" created by government in the first place.
Actual deregulation, that is allowing anyone to enter the market and at the same time letting companies that do not do well fail, is not the problem at all. As usual, failures of government regulation are being touted as "free market" failures where there is no "free market".
I'm impressed. You give an example of someone abusing a government hand-out, and call that a problem with deregulation. Why isn't it a problem of having a government hand-out in the first place?
A healthy market depends on freedom. Businesses that do not serve their customers fail. Government regulation prevents those failures, thus insulating businesses from the real repercussions of their choices.
Your example of Delta Airlines is a perfect example.
Every intervention causes distortions, which are used as excuses to do more interventions, which cause more distortions, etc etc etc.
Lastly, a free-market tends toward efficiency. That doesn't mean that everything done at any given time is always efficient. However, government intervention is always inefficient because it is based on coercion and insulated from any chance of failure (short of violent revolution).
"Private Sector Monopoly". Hmm, let's look at this assumption.
First, a definition: A government monopoly means that anyone who tries to compete is arrested and jailed. At the very least, they are put out of business by force. That's what a government monopoly means.
So how would a free-market monopoly exist? It would have to provide a service people wanted, otherwise people wouldn't buy it. It would have to be provided cheaper and/or better than anyone else could provide the service, or some smart-ass would step in and sell it cheaper.
Lastly, the free-market monopoly would have to constantly innovate with the changes in technology and style, or some smart-ass would step in and sell a blue one if the monopoly only sold red ones.
Government monopolies are accountable, yes, but only to higher level bureaucrats. A free-market monopoly is accountable to *me*, the customer. If I, as a customer, are dissatisfied, I will pay more to some other provider just to spite the monopoly. This opens up yet another avenue for profitable competition.
A private-sector monopoly is a very fragile thing, as Microsoft is discovering. They are temporary abberations, unlike government.
Folks who talk about deregulation or decriminalization being "dangerous" do so because they fear their neighbors. They project that because some "government" wouldn't be holding a gun to other peoples heads, those people will act in irresponsible and evil ways. It is a very pervasive irrational belief.
A perfect example: "Imagine how things would be if there wasn't regulation on safety and repair."
Government regulation is always double-edged. First, it creates bureaucratic overhead, both for the "industry" regulated, raising their costs of doing business and therefore their prices, and for the taxpayer who has to pay for the bureaucracy. Government, by its regulations, creates a limit on liability. So the hapless consumer has to pay three times over for everything done "for your own good".
Unfortunately, because of this democracy crap, people who fear their neighbors gang together and demand that "government do something", thereby externalizing the costs of their phobia on everyone else by force. Bureaucrats and politicians love it, because it increases their power and prestige. The phobic receive a false sense of security, and the rest of us have yet another barrier to overcome, another loss of liberty, another tax.
It's actually very easy to imagine deregulation. No more excuses that "we were following regulations, so you can't sue us."
The airline's insurance company does not want to pay out, neither do passengers want to die. Therefore, they will make efforts to be safe and reliable in order to get more business. It might indeed raise the price of a ticket on a reputable airline, but that price is paid only by those who choose to use that service. No tax-supported bureaucracy, no regulatory overhead. The actual "costs" to "society" are reduced dramatically, and there are more resources available to do something productive.
I'll second (&etc) the recommendation for Anne McCaffrey, pretty much everything I've read by her will work. Her writing is certainly G or PG rated, and is (obviously) written from the female point of view.
Taflak Lysandra and Brightsuit McBear are a couple of his works that are written expressly for the young reader. You will likely have to get them from AbeBooks. I can also recommend his Lando Calrisian trilogy, it's quite readable and in a known "universe".
especially the parts about how Lenin had to reintroduce currency, etc. to keep his people alive.
The historical analysis available on Mises.org is astounding in its depth. I'm sure you can find the references without much effort if you're interested.
the ONLY things communism is good for (and it is REALLY good at this) are increasing government control and reducing human free agency.
As a philosophy, it's pretty. Everyone loving each other, working for the common good, deriving satisfaction from a job well done, etc.
But human beings are all nice all the time. People do things for selfish reasons. There is also a very real dis-utility to labor, people would rather be comfortable than out working. Communism cannot deal with the dis-utility of labor.
It also cannot deal with limited resources, because without prices you cannot know what is in short supply or over-abundance. People may produce, but there is no way to know if what they produce is actually useful.
This is the great "calculation problem" that Ludwig von Mises identified as one reason that all command economies are inherently inefficient.
The one system that has brought the most prosperity to the greatest number of people is the American capitalist system.
During the 1800's, the greatest number of people had the greatest protection of private property that the world has ever had. Not just America, also Europe once it had stabilized after Napoleon had his rampage. Remember that the fundamentals of American respect for private property and individual liberty were based upon English precedent.
Classical Greece, republican Rome, even the Arab regions have seen such periods of time, and the great advances it allows.
It is interesting that the periods of time when China was preeminent were when the Emperor kept his bureaucracy in line. The great treasure fleet of Zeng He was launched not by the Chinese government per say, but by the Emperor himself. Zeng He was a court eunuch, and his fleet was recalled and their maps, papers and documentation were all burned by the bureaucratic Mandarins who were finally able to overthrow the power of the court. Once the Emperor was just a figurehead, and the bureaucracy in full control, China imploded. By the time Europe found them the largest country in the world was easy pickings.
if you can point out another real difference between socialism and communism, I would seriously like to hear it.
Let's take Lenin's example to illustrate the difference. Communism has no money, no barter. Everyone contributes, everyone receives. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Lenin tried to impose communism, people died.
Socialism is central planning. Lenin then changed direction, justifying it by saying that people "just were not ready" for communism. Socialism, he said, as did Mao and other honest Communists, is merely a middle ground. A third-way which will no longer be needed when people are properly educated in Communist ideals.
Central banks are socialist institutions. So are planning commissions, zoning boards, government regulatory agencies of all sizes and stripes. All of what you might have heard called "third-way" between Capitalism and Socialism is merely socialism by steps instead of leaps and bounds.
Because of the inherent inefficiency of socialist systems, all socialism requires greater and greater enforcement over time. Every intervention requires more interventions to try to fix what the previous intervention broke, ad infinitum. That's why all socialism leads to dictatorial rule eventually, or someone gets the bright idea of removing some central planning in order to hopefully maintain power over what is left. Like what Lenin and later leaders did in the USSR, or China now.
Private monopolies and cartels are some of the most coercive forces on earth, esp. when they are buying political influence in a monetized 'free-market' of governance.
Since the only way a real monopoly can exist is by government force, and cartels are unstable (see OPEC) without that same government force keeping them in line (see Railroads), your argument isn't with "private" efforts at all. You object to interventionist government, just as I do.
A free-market monopoly cannot rest on its laurels. It must continuously innovate, keep prices and costs as low as possible, or face every Tom, James or Nicola who comes up with a better/cheaper widget. That's why Microsoft makes so many political contribution$.
check that their communities aren't in need of levee repairs...
You aren't aware that the levees around New Orleans, in fact all the way up the Mississippi river, are explicitly government built, owned and operated? That's why such a failure can occur and not have anyone held responsible, fired, nor even demoted. Again, your objection is with government, and I agree with you.
Libertarians tilt toward toward a degree of naive single-mindedness reminescent of communism.
Non sequiter. Did you mean "communists"?
But communists have experience at the helm, and you don't.
Interestingly put. The communists failed in each and every effort, Lenin going so far as to reintroduce currency and limited private enterprise in order to keep his entire country from starving out from under him. Pol Pot is an encyclopedia of evil all to himself. Both the English Virginia and Massachusetts colonies nearly starved themselves out of existence because they set themselves up as "commonwealths", an early word for communist, and no one lifted a finger to raise crops. Exactly like Lenin discovered 400 years later. Hmmm.... there's a lesson there.
If you examine the principle of non-initiation of force, you will find that such environments have existed, more or less, throughout history. They mark times and places of remarkable peacefulness and progress. If you are actually interested in the subject, please check out the Ludwig von Mises Institute, http://www.mises.org/ There are many authors represented, both in print and in audio/video, with historical, sociological, even religious, perspectives. I especially suggest the audio discussion on anarchy, it is often good to take an idea to its logical extreme to examine what it means.
You live as a libertarian every day. You voluntarily shop in places, and for products, that you desire rather than being told to do so. You negotiate with your employer, voluntarily agreeing to work for the offered wage (or not), demonstrating the fundamental Libertarian principle of self ownership and voluntary interaction. It is only thieves and government which must tax others by force for their own existence.
You are welcome to say that a coercion-free society is illogical due to the very real human nature to desire, and acquire by any means, power over others. That is a functional idea shared by many, and the reason that there is such a person as a "min-archist".
It is also the reason that the Colt pistol was named, "The Equalizer".
It does? Not for the Canadians I've talked to, but then they moved south for lower taxes and less regulation (sure fooled them!).
The problem is one of force. Socialism is based upon social interaction by force.
Capitalism is its opposite, non-coercive interaction.
That's all. I prefer to live peacefully, and I recognize the benefits of not being afraid. Great movie, _The Russia House_, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100530/ especially the level of angst. That, and Michelle Pfeiffer, a reason to see it all by itself.
I don't see any limitation about needing one end of the tunnel to be directly addressable, but that makes sense. Otherwise how would they see each other?
Yep. Port-forwarding does work, but then there still is a directly addressable machine accessable from the outside. As opposed to simple NAT. Someone has to open the connection, so they have to be able to reach the other system.
The reason the Gnutella system works is that stable reachable systems automatically become core nodes that NATed machines can open a connection to. Unlike Napster, it's not single/multiple controlled servers which broker the connections, which kept records later used by lawyers to prosecute traders. If it can be done with streams of data for one use, why not for another?
OpenVPN requires one end of the tunnel to be directly addressable, so its use remains limited by that fact.
The Skype model, which seems substantially like the Gnutella network, might be one way of building such a system. Heck, why couldn't it be piggy-backed on the existing Gnutella network?
The voice client could connect to the Gnutella network with a hash of the users userID (or some such). Want to find Bob_Robertson? A request for the SHA1 hash of "Bob_Robertson" goes out, my system sees the request and responds, etc.
The only real problem is lag. I don't know how long it might be between someone trying to find me and my system finally receiving the request.
Oh well. The simple fact is that Security Is Inconvenient.
The Federalists were against a Bill of Rights. Since the Constitution explicitly granted the Fed.Gov no power to establish a state religion, or prohibit arms, as a couple of examples, they argued that any "bill of rights" could not include everything, and might therefore in the future become confused, that those few rights enumerated were being "granted" to the people by that Bill, rather than pre-existing the new Constitution and being prohibited by the states (who came first) from any power of infringement by this new Fed.Gov.
That is exactly what happened. Now, anything not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights is fair game for the Fed.Gov to regulate and prohibit. Even the items specifically mentioned are substantially regulated and even prohibited, laughing in the face of such explicit language as "Shall Not Be Infringed".
As if Americans have any recourse? With a 98%+ re-election rate at the Federal level, Near that at state and local levels, a very well coordinated media blackout of viable candidates that offer alternatives (such as limited government of specifically enumerated powers, imagine that! Shocking!) and most people being focused on making enough money to both live and pay their taxes, rather than on silly pointless things like "voting", and what do you get?
One of the other posters here is correct, the Virginia colony very likely had a harvest festival before the Plymouth colony did, if for no other reason than they started a dozen years earlier with exactly the same communal-property=starvation results.
However, if we are going to discuss the "why"s and "wherefore"s, it would be educational to remember that William Branford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, wrote it all up.
Here are some articles with links to the original:
In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."
The Pilgrims' unhappiness was caused by their system of common property (not adopted, as often asserted, from their religious convictions, but required against their will by the colony's sponsors). The fruits of each person's efforts went to the community, and each received a share from the common wealth. This caused severe strains among the members, as Colony Governor William Bradford recorded:
" . . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."
Or if you really just want the undigested original:
"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."
Actually no, the Declaration of Independence was ratified on July 2nd. It took a full day to write it out neatly, then signed on July 4th by some few members who were there, the rest signed it over the course of several years.
For some reason, when I was investigating, freenet6 just wasn't striking the right chords with me. Can't say why now at all.
I really like H.E.'s Tunnelbroker.net, very automated. If I had known about their tunnels not working through NAT, I would have been able to do it all without bothering their tech support people at all. I like that.
By Cromm, I hate VPN crap. A tool of very limited usefulness infected by buzz-word sales drones. I've seen otherwise nice servers so laden with VPNs that they could not function to 1/5 of their capacity.
The number of people who think that VPN is some kind of tunnel is a perfect example of how hype-ridden the entire VPN concept has always been.
Ignore VPNs, use a tunnel where a tunnel is useful, life will be easier for everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
The funny thing is that most people won't. Only those with strong feelings attached to the matter will.
Yep, I won't force someone to use a service I prefer just because I prefer it, no matter how much better I think it is. I want the same respect from others.
I realize that the Austrian School of economics doesn't put too much stock into that sort of analysis, but it works for any perfectly competive markets (not that computer software is a perfect competition).
If you know something about the Austrian Economic principles, you will be aware that your premise of "perfect competition" is what is impossible. That which depends on an impossible premise is therefore false.
you have to realize that we wouldn't have the infrastructure to support industry that we have today without them.
Why?
I agree that things certainly would not be the same as now, but why must I allow that the present infrastructure is optimal? Why must I allow that the present infrastructure is even preferable to what otherwise might have been built?
there are some industries that are far too risky and too expensive to start up.
This is a bald assertion with neither logical or factual evidence to back it up. Nuclear power plants are an excellent counter-example. Something hideously expensive to build, only paying off over decades, yet the only reason they are not being built is because of the government regulatory burden that makes it impossible.
We wouldn't have satellites today without massive government investment in launch capacity.
Your argument is specious. Maybe the deployment might have been delayed, because government (spending other peoples money) had the resources to waste on sub-standard technology for the task. However, communications satellites themselves are private, run at a profit, put up there at great expense because of that profitability. It would have happened eventually just like the oceans had communications cables, at massive costs and risks, run privately.
In the mean time, our incomes have been garnished, our grandchildren's grandchildren mortgaged, and for something that would have been accomplished anyway. Tell me again how much I benefit. Tell my granddaughter who will be paying for your conveniences.
Bob-
Go look for my first-level posting entitled "False Headline".
And no, don't ever bother to dispute a statement if you can simply bemoan the person stating it. That would require more neurons than a Microsoft TCO study.
Good sir, the telecom market entry price is has been dropping like a stone, ever since it was "deregulated" to some extent. Those areas, such as local telephone service, where government granted monopolies are still the rule rather than the exception is where little to no innovation exists.
If you're actually interested in why the "free market" functions better than a regulated one, you are welcome to read the materials available on the Ludwig von Mises Institute home page.
http://www.mises.org/
It is in fact a mathematical model, a logically provable statement that a free market will be more efficient than a command-based one.
I do find this statement interesting:
As long as there are people who are willing to fuck over other people for their own good, we need regulation.
Good God Why Would You Trust Such People With The Power Of Government? Or does being in government somehow make people saints? By your own words you state that you are concerned about the evil tendencies of others, yet you put into their hands the power to kill you at will. This is irrational.
Bob-
On the government monopoly on force. You've almost got it. The government monopoly is not on force per se, or it would be illegal for me to defend myself (such as in England). What government reserves to itself is the power to initiate force.
For example, if I decide I do not like the new terms of a credit card agreement, I can cancel my contract with that credit card company. Any charges, of course, I am liable for because I voluntarily entered into the contract in the first place and made the purchases.
Enter government. The IRS changes its rules every year. If I decide I do not like the new terms, well, too bad. Government may unilaterally change the rules, the "social contract" as it were, at will and I have no recourse. If I grew hemp, and let's say government decided one day that hemp was forbidden. They come and put me out of business for doing, today, what was perfectly legal yesterday.
That is called "initiation of force". Private security, militia, silly guys in black pajamas, are certainly all legal but only if the force used is defensive or "respose" rather than "initiation".
My second objection is to your inherent assumption about consumer awareness and freedom of choice: that people will be aware of 'blue ones' and that they will buy them if they are available.
I do understand what you mean, no matter how awful your example. A "free market" is not utopia. The good guys do not always win. As someone else recently posted, a "free market" is like evolution. It's dirty, dangerous, and it takes time, but it always tends toward efficiency because in order to profit every endeavor must strive toward the lowest costs of doing business in order to keep their margins as high as possible.
Yes, indeed, people do want to flush their toilets and have their lights work and their phones function. That is why there is a market for utilities. You have not given me any example or specific reason as to why a government providing those services is more efficient than private efforts, yet I see around me every day example after example of private delivery of such important items as food, fuel, clothing, shelter, and not just to city dwellers but to every person everywhere. It takes serious effort to find somewhere not an easy trip to the nearest grocery store. Yet there is no "department of food distribution".
That government (such as the town I live in, damn them) has taken upon itself to run the electricity, water, gas, garbage utilities, &etc, does not mean they do it better. It means it is illegal for anyone else to do it. Or, for such as garbage, even if I get a private trash collector I still have to pay the city for the service I do not use. Or the post office prosecuting people for using FedEd and violating the legal monopoly on "first class mail". We're back to that initiation of force thing. They deliberately make it difficult to not use their service, even if it is not outright illegal.
In regards to your last sentence... "is unsound and, quite honestly, rather naive. It just isn't that simple."
This is the argument of someone convinced that they can use the force of law "for your own good". It doesn't matter if there is no crime being committed, no one harmed or defrauded. In your opinion it's "unsound" and "naive", and therefore you feel justified in forcing your opinion on everyone by force of law.
So what is sacred to you? What do you have that you think it is beyond the proper power of government to regulate? Now, why should I respect that if you show no such respect for others? And that is why regulation doesn't work, because opinions differ.
Bob-
Of course it's cheaper, as Canada is discovering.
Let's look at a few of the reasons.
First, all other things being equal, if you decrease the price of something you increase the demand. In healthcare, that means more people will use more resources (doctor time, medical facilities, etc). The resources are used that would not be used otherwise, and must be paid for.
By limiting prices, shortages are created. Without the opportunity to make a profit, no one will produce (or even know to produce) the item in demand. As an example, there are more astoundingly expensive MRI machines in Orange County, California, than in the entire country of Canada.
Regulation reduces variety. There is no way to know what procedures, medicines, devices have not been created because of the suppression of opportunity that regulation entails.
But of course, deregulation is not less expensive for those who choose to use the expensive services, as opposed to inexpensive commodity services: physicians as opposed to surgeons, herbal remedies as opposed to cutting-edge limited application drugs.
Reading the article, the problem is not one of deregulation. The problem is entrenched telecommunications "monopolies" created by government in the first place.
Actual deregulation, that is allowing anyone to enter the market and at the same time letting companies that do not do well fail, is not the problem at all. As usual, failures of government regulation are being touted as "free market" failures where there is no "free market".
Bob-
I'm impressed. You give an example of someone abusing a government hand-out, and call that a problem with deregulation. Why isn't it a problem of having a government hand-out in the first place?
A healthy market depends on freedom. Businesses that do not serve their customers fail. Government regulation prevents those failures, thus insulating businesses from the real repercussions of their choices.
Your example of Delta Airlines is a perfect example.
Every intervention causes distortions, which are used as excuses to do more interventions, which cause more distortions, etc etc etc.
Lastly, a free-market tends toward efficiency. That doesn't mean that everything done at any given time is always efficient. However, government intervention is always inefficient because it is based on coercion and insulated from any chance of failure (short of violent revolution).
"Private Sector Monopoly". Hmm, let's look at this assumption.
First, a definition: A government monopoly means that anyone who tries to compete is arrested and jailed. At the very least, they are put out of business by force. That's what a government monopoly means.
So how would a free-market monopoly exist? It would have to provide a service people wanted, otherwise people wouldn't buy it. It would have to be provided cheaper and/or better than anyone else could provide the service, or some smart-ass would step in and sell it cheaper.
Lastly, the free-market monopoly would have to constantly innovate with the changes in technology and style, or some smart-ass would step in and sell a blue one if the monopoly only sold red ones.
Government monopolies are accountable, yes, but only to higher level bureaucrats. A free-market monopoly is accountable to *me*, the customer. If I, as a customer, are dissatisfied, I will pay more to some other provider just to spite the monopoly. This opens up yet another avenue for profitable competition.
A private-sector monopoly is a very fragile thing, as Microsoft is discovering. They are temporary abberations, unlike government.
Bob-
Folks who talk about deregulation or decriminalization being "dangerous" do so because they fear their neighbors. They project that because some "government" wouldn't be holding a gun to other peoples heads, those people will act in irresponsible and evil ways. It is a very pervasive irrational belief.
A perfect example: "Imagine how things would be if there wasn't regulation on safety and repair."
Government regulation is always double-edged. First, it creates bureaucratic overhead, both for the "industry" regulated, raising their costs of doing business and therefore their prices, and for the taxpayer who has to pay for the bureaucracy. Government, by its regulations, creates a limit on liability. So the hapless consumer has to pay three times over for everything done "for your own good".
Unfortunately, because of this democracy crap, people who fear their neighbors gang together and demand that "government do something", thereby externalizing the costs of their phobia on everyone else by force. Bureaucrats and politicians love it, because it increases their power and prestige. The phobic receive a false sense of security, and the rest of us have yet another barrier to overcome, another loss of liberty, another tax.
It's actually very easy to imagine deregulation. No more excuses that "we were following regulations, so you can't sue us."
The airline's insurance company does not want to pay out, neither do passengers want to die. Therefore, they will make efforts to be safe and reliable in order to get more business. It might indeed raise the price of a ticket on a reputable airline, but that price is paid only by those who choose to use that service. No tax-supported bureaucracy, no regulatory overhead. The actual "costs" to "society" are reduced dramatically, and there are more resources available to do something productive.
I'll second (&etc) the recommendation for Anne McCaffrey, pretty much everything I've read by her will work. Her writing is certainly G or PG rated, and is (obviously) written from the female point of view.
Taflak Lysandra and Brightsuit McBear are a couple of his works that are written expressly for the young reader. You will likely have to get them from AbeBooks. I can also recommend his Lando Calrisian trilogy, it's quite readable and in a known "universe".
? an=l+neil+smith&y=6&x=48
? an=l+neil+smith&y=0&tn=brightsuit&x=0
? an=l+neil+smith&y=0&tn=taflak&x=0
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults
Bob-
especially the parts about how Lenin had to reintroduce currency, etc. to keep his people alive.
The historical analysis available on Mises.org is astounding in its depth. I'm sure you can find the references without much effort if you're interested.
the ONLY things communism is good for (and it is REALLY good at this) are increasing government control and reducing human free agency.
As a philosophy, it's pretty. Everyone loving each other, working for the common good, deriving satisfaction from a job well done, etc.
But human beings are all nice all the time. People do things for selfish reasons. There is also a very real dis-utility to labor, people would rather be comfortable than out working. Communism cannot deal with the dis-utility of labor.
It also cannot deal with limited resources, because without prices you cannot know what is in short supply or over-abundance. People may produce, but there is no way to know if what they produce is actually useful.
This is the great "calculation problem" that Ludwig von Mises identified as one reason that all command economies are inherently inefficient.
The one system that has brought the most prosperity to the greatest number of people is the American capitalist system.
During the 1800's, the greatest number of people had the greatest protection of private property that the world has ever had. Not just America, also Europe once it had stabilized after Napoleon had his rampage. Remember that the fundamentals of American respect for private property and individual liberty were based upon English precedent.
Classical Greece, republican Rome, even the Arab regions have seen such periods of time, and the great advances it allows.
It is interesting that the periods of time when China was preeminent were when the Emperor kept his bureaucracy in line. The great treasure fleet of Zeng He was launched not by the Chinese government per say, but by the Emperor himself. Zeng He was a court eunuch, and his fleet was recalled and their maps, papers and documentation were all burned by the bureaucratic Mandarins who were finally able to overthrow the power of the court. Once the Emperor was just a figurehead, and the bureaucracy in full control, China imploded. By the time Europe found them the largest country in the world was easy pickings.
if you can point out another real difference between socialism and communism, I would seriously like to hear it.
Let's take Lenin's example to illustrate the difference. Communism has no money, no barter. Everyone contributes, everyone receives. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Lenin tried to impose communism, people died.
Socialism is central planning. Lenin then changed direction, justifying it by saying that people "just were not ready" for communism. Socialism, he said, as did Mao and other honest Communists, is merely a middle ground. A third-way which will no longer be needed when people are properly educated in Communist ideals.
Central banks are socialist institutions. So are planning commissions, zoning boards, government regulatory agencies of all sizes and stripes. All of what you might have heard called "third-way" between Capitalism and Socialism is merely socialism by steps instead of leaps and bounds.
Because of the inherent inefficiency of socialist systems, all socialism requires greater and greater enforcement over time. Every intervention requires more interventions to try to fix what the previous intervention broke, ad infinitum. That's why all socialism leads to dictatorial rule eventually, or someone gets the bright idea of removing some central planning in order to hopefully maintain power over what is left. Like what Lenin and later leaders did in the USSR, or China now.
Ok?
Bob-
Private monopolies and cartels are some of the most coercive forces on earth, esp. when they are buying political influence in a monetized 'free-market' of governance.
Since the only way a real monopoly can exist is by government force, and cartels are unstable (see OPEC) without that same government force keeping them in line (see Railroads), your argument isn't with "private" efforts at all. You object to interventionist government, just as I do.
A free-market monopoly cannot rest on its laurels. It must continuously innovate, keep prices and costs as low as possible, or face every Tom, James or Nicola who comes up with a better/cheaper widget. That's why Microsoft makes so many political contribution$.
check that their communities aren't in need of levee repairs...
You aren't aware that the levees around New Orleans, in fact all the way up the Mississippi river, are explicitly government built, owned and operated? That's why such a failure can occur and not have anyone held responsible, fired, nor even demoted. Again, your objection is with government, and I agree with you.
Libertarians tilt toward toward a degree of naive single-mindedness reminescent of communism.
Non sequiter. Did you mean "communists"?
But communists have experience at the helm, and you don't.
Interestingly put. The communists failed in each and every effort, Lenin going so far as to reintroduce currency and limited private enterprise in order to keep his entire country from starving out from under him. Pol Pot is an encyclopedia of evil all to himself. Both the English Virginia and Massachusetts colonies nearly starved themselves out of existence because they set themselves up as "commonwealths", an early word for communist, and no one lifted a finger to raise crops. Exactly like Lenin discovered 400 years later. Hmmm.... there's a lesson there.
If you examine the principle of non-initiation of force, you will find that such environments have existed, more or less, throughout history. They mark times and places of remarkable peacefulness and progress. If you are actually interested in the subject, please check out the Ludwig von Mises Institute, http://www.mises.org/ There are many authors represented, both in print and in audio/video, with historical, sociological, even religious, perspectives. I especially suggest the audio discussion on anarchy, it is often good to take an idea to its logical extreme to examine what it means.
You live as a libertarian every day. You voluntarily shop in places, and for products, that you desire rather than being told to do so. You negotiate with your employer, voluntarily agreeing to work for the offered wage (or not), demonstrating the fundamental Libertarian principle of self ownership and voluntary interaction. It is only thieves and government which must tax others by force for their own existence.
You are welcome to say that a coercion-free society is illogical due to the very real human nature to desire, and acquire by any means, power over others. That is a functional idea shared by many, and the reason that there is such a person as a "min-archist".
It is also the reason that the Colt pistol was named, "The Equalizer".
Bob-
It does? Not for the Canadians I've talked to, but then they moved south for lower taxes and less regulation (sure fooled them!).
The problem is one of force. Socialism is based upon social interaction by force.
Capitalism is its opposite, non-coercive interaction.
That's all. I prefer to live peacefully, and I recognize the benefits of not being afraid. Great movie, _The Russia House_, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100530/ especially the level of angst. That, and Michelle Pfeiffer, a reason to see it all by itself.
Bob-
They also seem to have moderator points. Oh well. People hate it when someone disagrees with their religion.
I don't see any limitation about needing one end of the tunnel to be directly addressable, but that makes sense. Otherwise how would they see each other?
Yep. Port-forwarding does work, but then there still is a directly addressable machine accessable from the outside. As opposed to simple NAT. Someone has to open the connection, so they have to be able to reach the other system.
The reason the Gnutella system works is that stable reachable systems automatically become core nodes that NATed machines can open a connection to. Unlike Napster, it's not single/multiple controlled servers which broker the connections, which kept records later used by lawyers to prosecute traders. If it can be done with streams of data for one use, why not for another?
Bob-
Dude, there are still people who thing socialism will work, next time, when they are the ones in charge.
As Einstein said, "There are two infinites, the size of the universe and human stupidity. And I am not certain of the former."
Yep, right over my head. Thanks.
OpenVPN requires one end of the tunnel to be directly addressable, so its use remains limited by that fact.
The Skype model, which seems substantially like the Gnutella network, might be one way of building such a system. Heck, why couldn't it be piggy-backed on the existing Gnutella network?
The voice client could connect to the Gnutella network with a hash of the users userID (or some such). Want to find Bob_Robertson? A request for the SHA1 hash of "Bob_Robertson" goes out, my system sees the request and responds, etc.
The only real problem is lag. I don't know how long it might be between someone trying to find me and my system finally receiving the request.
Oh well. The simple fact is that Security Is Inconvenient.
Bob-
The Federalists were against a Bill of Rights. Since the Constitution explicitly granted the Fed.Gov no power to establish a state religion, or prohibit arms, as a couple of examples, they argued that any "bill of rights" could not include everything, and might therefore in the future become confused, that those few rights enumerated were being "granted" to the people by that Bill, rather than pre-existing the new Constitution and being prohibited by the states (who came first) from any power of infringement by this new Fed.Gov.
That is exactly what happened. Now, anything not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights is fair game for the Fed.Gov to regulate and prohibit. Even the items specifically mentioned are substantially regulated and even prohibited, laughing in the face of such explicit language as "Shall Not Be Infringed".
Bob-
As if Americans have any recourse? With a 98%+ re-election rate at the Federal level, Near that at state and local levels, a very well coordinated media blackout of viable candidates that offer alternatives (such as limited government of specifically enumerated powers, imagine that! Shocking!) and most people being focused on making enough money to both live and pay their taxes, rather than on silly pointless things like "voting", and what do you get?
Bob-
One of the other posters here is correct, the Virginia colony very likely had a harvest festival before the Plymouth colony did, if for no other reason than they started a dozen years earlier with exactly the same communal-property=starvation results.
t ml
However, if we are going to discuss the "why"s and "wherefore"s, it would be educational to remember that William Branford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, wrote it all up.
Here are some articles with links to the original:
From http://www.mises.org/story/336
In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."
And from https://www.mises.org/story/1678
The Pilgrims' unhappiness was caused by their system of common property (not adopted, as often asserted, from their religious convictions, but required against their will by the colony's sponsors). The fruits of each person's efforts went to the community, and each received a share from the common wealth. This caused severe strains among the members, as Colony Governor William Bradford recorded:
" . . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."
Or if you really just want the undigested original:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.h
"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."
Actually no, the Declaration of Independence was ratified on July 2nd. It took a full day to write it out neatly, then signed on July 4th by some few members who were there, the rest signed it over the course of several years.
For some reason, when I was investigating, freenet6 just wasn't striking the right chords with me. Can't say why now at all.
I really like H.E.'s Tunnelbroker.net, very automated. If I had known about their tunnels not working through NAT, I would have been able to do it all without bothering their tech support people at all. I like that.
Bob-
By Cromm, I hate VPN crap. A tool of very limited usefulness infected by buzz-word sales drones. I've seen otherwise nice servers so laden with VPNs that they could not function to 1/5 of their capacity.
The number of people who think that VPN is some kind of tunnel is a perfect example of how hype-ridden the entire VPN concept has always been.
Ignore VPNs, use a tunnel where a tunnel is useful, life will be easier for everyone.