The primary problem with "pure" capitalism is that capital breeds more capital, and eventually, nothing matters except capital. This is what led to the great excesses of the industrial revolution, where factory workers and their children were forced to work 16+ hour days in horrible, dangerous, and life shortening working conditions.
And there was no way out because the companies controlled all the forces of society at that time. It took a populist movement and some aggressive politicians to fix any of it.
I think the point in this article isn't so much that Microsoft is bad becuase it has all this power. The point is more that Microsoft does have all this power, and it's bad for any single organization to have so much power. Even the government.
And so, while the Trust-busters offend the free-market, small-government sensibilities of many, it has been only the concessions that capitalism has made to is workers (the same ones that led to the development of a large middle class) that have kept American from falling into a class-stratified, unstable hell.
And the corporations that push for ever-dominant, super-governmental power now will find the same populist forces pushing back. If Corporations win, we may well lose all free-thinking liberties we have known. After all, no one can paint a picture of the perfect human being, but we all know what the perfect consumer looks like.
In summary, it's not that Microsoft is innately evil, or even that they're products suck, but that they have amassed the single largest pool of power (capital) that exists in the world. That is dangerous to freedom. If it Linus Torvalds, with that kind of power, it would be just as bad. But it's not.
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And there was no way out because the companies controlled all the forces of society at that time. It took a populist movement and some aggressive politicians to fix any of it.
I think the point in this article isn't so much that Microsoft is bad becuase it has all this power. The point is more that Microsoft does have all this power, and it's bad for any single organization to have so much power. Even the government.
And so, while the Trust-busters offend the free-market, small-government sensibilities of many, it has been only the concessions that capitalism has made to is workers (the same ones that led to the development of a large middle class) that have kept American from falling into a class-stratified, unstable hell.
And the corporations that push for ever-dominant, super-governmental power now will find the same populist forces pushing back. If Corporations win, we may well lose all free-thinking liberties we have known. After all, no one can paint a picture of the perfect human being, but we all know what the perfect consumer looks like.
In summary, it's not that Microsoft is innately evil, or even that they're products suck, but that they have amassed the single largest pool of power (capital) that exists in the world. That is dangerous to freedom. If it Linus Torvalds, with that kind of power, it would be just as bad. But it's not.