Re:Software Freedom is more important than you thi
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Men of Zeal
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I'm claiming that *Perens* is claiming moral worth in free software -- not because it's software, but because it's free. Software -- communications technology in general -- is of incredible value. But I don't know that it can be describe as *moral* value.
A commercial competitor to PGP for crypto-secured communications: Lotus Notes. It is also well-verified, and not particularly expensive. That's just an example off the top of my head.
Understand, I'm not saying that these things aren't valuable. I'm saying that *free* software, as such, doesn't have value -- I'm saying that I think the claim of some transcendental nobility, which Perens implies in his post, is hogwash.
Free software is great. I love it. I use it everyday. But people who write it and support it are not moral crusaders. I reserve that label for the Jeffersons, the Ghandis, and the Einstein's of the world.
Re:Software Freedom is more important than you thi
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Men of Zeal
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How pretentious!
Every human rights organization in the world has the option of using any of a dozen commercial encryption products with no more risk of exposure to repressive government than with PGP. That has nothing whatsoever to do with free software.
Computers and software, as valuable as they may be, have this difference from a meeting in a public square: you are not reliant on anyone else to be able to speak your mind in a public square. To broadcast ideas on the internet, you must have people willing to help you (computer manufacturers, software coders, telecommunications companies, site hosts, etc.) Crying in a public square demands no positive action from others.
Do not confuse the right to speak your mind with the right of others to refuse to help you.
If someone else controls your software, you do indeed have the potential for someone to control your communications *with that software*. But this do not mean that commercial vendors for software who withhold their source code are working with "the man." Commercial institutions form synergistic relationships according to the demands of the market, and for every threat of a Microsoft colluding with the FBI for exposure of personal secrets, there's a L0pht and a slashdot to find out about it and tell the world.
When I think and consider the people who are "empowered" by free software, I am happy for them. But I find no reason to believe that their access to software has *moral worth*. It is no more fulfilling (probably less so) then their access to clean water or pharmaceuticals -- both of which are provided all over the globe by institutions of every sort, from commercial to charitable to governmental.
Do not overestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks. We are players in a market, and as such we serve the public. How much we ask for in return is not indicative of our worth, but how much we *get* most certainly is.
The problem with the 'Monkey Piss' name is that it is too easily turned into an epithet. 'Monkey Pus', obviously an undesirable association, will instantly be used by corporate detractors. Mock web site and fake ads will immediately start using a parody logo feature a festering sore on the ass of a simian, guaranteeing ridicule the world over. Competitive ads will feature tags lines like 'Monkey Pissing into the Wind' or 'Tired of being Monkey Pissed off?"
Anyone who thinks this has remained ignorant of 2 very important projects:
1) Blizzard's Warcraft III
2) Valve's TeamFortress 2
Warcraft III is a bit different than an RTS -- it's really an RTT, Real-Time Tactical game. Action will focus on smaller party size, not unlike more recent party-oriented games such as Baldur's Gate and Diablo 2. Rather than a party of 6 or 8, though, players will work with a squad of a dozen or so -- with required specialist and leadership roles. This will compel force-mixing nicely, breaking out from the old RTS problem of the "superunit" that allows any player to dominate.
TF2, on the other hand, will present an RTS idea where the objects being direct on screen are actually *OTHER PLAYERS IN FIRST-PERSON SHOOTERS!* This is about as exciting as 'net team play is likely to get in the next few years, and if you haven't checked out what Valve is doing in this regard, I'd highly recommend stopping by their web site. The game will feature some great technology -- but more importantly, it will feature game play ideas that are brilliant evolutions from what we seen today.
Is the RTS dead? Perhaps in the form of "gather resources, build units, advance technologies, repeat." But they are far from dead.
Consider the possibilities of RTS scenarios in which the units are real people! Morale, fatigue, situational awareness and ability to command will become more important that click-speed and fps.
Forget digital cameras and cell phones for a minute -- let's just consider good ol' fashioned written word. How does the IOC expect to prevent journalists from ESPN.com from simply buying event tickets and running quick write-ups about them?
If score results and highlights are posted on a 15-minute delay, and television coverage is on a 15-hour delay, how much interest will US audiences still have? Most prime time Olympics viewers are white collar -- which means they will read the written web coverage at work.
The IOC can keep out cameras, if they handle events like a rock concert -- with bouncer/ushers roaming the stands. They can't really keep out cell phones, though. How tough would web-based radio coverage be? A lapel-mounted mic to a cell phone dialed into an office across town could record the entirety of an event without trouble.
What is the legal ground for preventing this? Are they expecting to put a fair-use agreement on the back of every ticket? What is Australian law on freedom of the press?
The irony is that if they *would* formulate agreements with 'net sites, then they could contractually limit their actions. But by refusing outright to grant them press privledges, they have no rights to limit anything they do! I hope some people get in there and cover it just out of spite.
I can understand the IOC wanting to protect their coverage -- the amazing part is that they are failing to do EXACTLY THAT!
I just want to clarify a bit here about the consequences of crop failure in a free market context. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof.
Let's say a given region which normally exports food has a bad spell and must import food. What happens to the price of food in that region? Obviously, it goes up. After initial speculative pricing, it will tend towards a level equal to the cost of food in the nearest exporting markets plus the transaction cost of processing and shipping.
But what of the demand? Well, people will *demand* food theoretically right up to the point of suicide if they are allowed. That is, demand is almost completely inelastic because *not* having food is a sure recipe for getting no other values -- 'cause you'll be dead.
Sophisticated markets have the ability to provide for such circumstances through financing. That is, by spending future capital today to pay for temporarily increased prices.
This is exactly what happens in free-exchange markets. Say, for example, between US states. Crop shortage in Minnesota this year? Yeah, wheat prices go up, but the rest of the midwest bread basket covers the difference quite comforably. And as markets advance, the world's best analysis possible is placed against these factors by playing commodity futures markets to stablize prices.
So why don't we see the same effects globally? Because these markets are not permitted in many countries where starvation is prevalent. If people are simply not allowed to bid up prices for food, then there's no possibility of market planning in anticipation of those prices!
Out of all the things economists disagree, the Law of Comparative Advantage is the one that virtually all agree upon. And that all food shortages ever are -- time-cycled instances of comparative advantage. When such trades are blocked or nullified, the only guarantee we have is that somewhere, available resources are diverted into less useful purposes.
This goes just as much for IMF handouts and charity food drives as it does for farm subsidies and trade barries. Diluting incentives to plan for the future is as harmful as anything.
Rajat Bhargava wasn't a co-founder of Interliant. Interliant was originally WorldCom (before those LDDS-guys started doing business in the US), and was started by Eric Carmichael, Eric Sachs and Mathew Wolf. I knew half their senior staff.
When they started, they were the only successful public Lotus Notes network in existence (nobody but the two Erics could figure out how to run one.) They branched into more web and private networking stuff with the advent of Lotus' Domino, and eventually merged with some other company.
*sigh* I can't stand it when people lie on their resume.
Bove was protesting global corporatism? Read the article, brightboy...
"They were protesting against US duties on French cheeses."
Was McDonald's responsible for the US duties on French cheese? One might even argue yes, but it still begs the question of why the US government is permitted to impose duties on French cheeses in the first place.
You see, the problem was, is and will forever be that the US government takes actions threatening the relationships of US citizens around the world. Whether it's butting in to every border-dispute in the Mideast, imposing import restrictions on other nations' products (ever heard of the Law of Comparative Advantage?), or arbitrarily handing out taxpayer money through the World Bank -- as long as the US government continues playing favorites in foreign policy, American citizens will be at risk all over the globe.
Does Bove dislike McDonald's? Probably. Do the citizens of Millau not want a MickyD's in their town? Perhaps. If they don't, and there are enough of them, why don't they just buy out the owner? Clearly there are enough people who *want* a McDonald's to incent the franchise to come there in the first place. Have you considered their desires in this equation?
Katz, you have to be the single worst political analyst I've ever read. Worst, because not only do you have no understanding of the issues involved -- you insist on putting up an air of sophistication that any high schooler could undermine. If you think the purpose of the Founding Fathers was to establish a nation where a company could have its private capital destroyed by the whim of a vandal, without protection of law, I suggest you read the initial draft of the Declaration, which refered to Life, Liberty and *Property*.
And for those who refer to the Boston Tea Party as a protest against big business, get the facts right. The East India Company was a royal charter company -- which means they were essentially an extension of British government interests, owned by the Royal family, granted military-backed monopolies who used captured prisoners as slave labor. They made Microsoft look like the FSF.
Thomas Paine author of "Common Sense," "The Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man" is well-known American patriot and deist.
The two are pretty far apart in all but age.
It's also worth noting that the printing press was invented around 1437, and was hardly revolutionary when either "A Modest Proposal" or "Common Sense" were published.
There's no such thing as an "equilbrium price." This is a fiction of economists, and has been thoroughly debunked.
Prices exist in a state of *disequilbrium*, fluxating with the changes in knowledge and preferences of economic actors. They *tend* towards a theoretic equilibrium, depending on the speed of information flow within the relevant market. Compare, for example, the consistency of crude oil prices from transaction to transaction vs. the inconsistency of, say, designing a web site.
The price for any given transaction is somewhere between the minimum the seller is willing to accept and the maximum the buyer is willing to pay. Each party's profit on the exchange is the difference between the *actual* price and their threshold price.
As far as whether this is capitalism -- well, I'll agree that the patents involved are questionable at best. I just thought there should be no delusions about "equilibrium price."
Streamlined government!?! I couldn't imagine anything worse. We must be thankful today that government is so utterly incompetant that it cannot take away freedoms at an even faster rate.
Years ago, I read Frank Herbert's stories about the Bureau of Sabotage. The premise of the stories was that well-meaning reformers had succeeded in eliminating all the red tape and bureaucratic rigmarole that make government so inefficient. The result was a government so streamlined, so effective, that it posed a far greater threat to liberty than ever before. Laws were passed at a much higher rate, and enforced vigilantly. Delays and oversights due to incompetence or graft were a thing of the past; now there was no escape from the everpresent eye of the state.
The privitization proposed really refers to regulatory oversight. Though they may exist as independent commercial entities, power utilities are heavily regulated -- particularly in the arena of "universal service" requirements. This is ultimately the same reason telco companies have sucked for so long.
That's not to mention the regulatory rate burdens they face.
Real costs of electrical power are not yet borne by the purchaser. Even putting pollution externalities aside, prices are not accurate conveyers of information on the matter, due to regulations.
I was referring to the theory argued for informally by Adam Smith and that has now been formalised into the First and Second Fundamental Theorems of Welfare Economics. The theory says that under certain conditions, free markets will lead to the maximisation of social welfare, even when the agents who are trading only care about their own welfare.
And externalities have been repeatedly demonstrated to be the one exception to this rule. Putting aside externalities, the only definition of "social welfare" is the cumulative welfare of the individuals within a given society.
I don't see why this is true. Surely anything that affects welfare that is not governed by the price mechanism should concern us equally whether it increases or decreases welfare.
What is the problem with positive externalities? If I like beautiful rose gardens, so I maintain one in my front yard, and you sit across the street and enjoy it, this is a positive externality. If it is not internalized -- that is, if I do not erect a fence and charge you admission to my rose garden -- the result is only underproduction of rose gardens. This is only a social opportunity cost, rather than a real cost. A benefit which could have been incurred is not, but there is no involuntarily forfeited value -- I would still choose to maintain my rose garden.
But that's a damn good question! [grin]
Maybe this is true, but it is not important. What is important is how imperfect information affects welfare, and this is different under different systems.
It's imporant if you propose regulation as the solution! That's a mechanism notorious for working with information as far from perfect as one is likely to achieve!
In most cases, I agree, markets are the best solution. However, in some cases imperfect information can cause markets to unravel. Think of the case of buying health insurance for the old people. In this case the insurance companies are likely to know less about peoples health than their potential customers. Less healthy people will buy more health insurance than the more healthy ones, so the insurance company will increase the price of insurance. This will mean if you are healthy, there will be no reasonably priced health insurance. In case like this, markets do not work, so there is a good case (i.e. it would improve welfare) for universal health insurance for provided by the government and paid for through taxes.
I disagree strongly, for one simple reason: the aquisition of knowledge itself has a cost. By requiring extensive differentiation between rates for policy holders, an insurance firm is not permitted to lower its *marginal* rate by cutting costs on information gathering.
Everything an insurance company does is based on aquisition and processing of information, in the form of actuarial metrics to determine the statistical relationships between health conditions and risk of health problems. But the gathering of that information is subject to the law of returns, and eventually the information gathered about the policy holder is more expensive than the resulting savings in the risk-weighted return. How, then, can you justify spending the money? It's as wasteful as clear-cutting forests.
Like this: there are two types of solution. (1)Those involving unregulated free markets and (2) those that involve some government intervention. In cases where solutions of type (1) fail, try solutions of type (2) if there is a good reason to think that doing so would increase welfare.
I have a hangover. There are two solutions: (1) take aspirin and rehydrate myself and (2) drink more alcohol. In cases where solutions of type (1) fail, should I try solutions of type (2), even though I know that's exactly what caused the problem in the first place?
There is such a good reason, namely: correcting market distortions would move us closer to the welfare maximising situation that would obtain were markets perfect.
But how do you identify a "market distortion?" You must have information to compare to. And you run into a calculation problem there. Its Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: the calculation to predict reality is more complex than the reality itself. You can't outguess the market -- you can only let individuals voluntarily exchange value for value and observe the results.
This is the bit of your post I agree with. I was not suggesting the complete abolition of pricing. Only intervention where prices do not reflect the approximate true value/cost in term of welfare of an action. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear!
The point is that *you can't empirically know* whether the prices reflect the value/cost. You can only make that determination a priori -- which means you must do so from first principles. Economics (good econ, anyway) tells us that economic actors behave purposefully to maximize subjective value given best knowledge, and given that, ensuring the atmosphere of maximization of voluntary exchanges is the method to get that best reflection.
Try this one. Suppose we abolish all property rights. In this case there would not even be an incentive to look after those parts of the environment that we had previously owned.
You just trying to come up with something I'll think worse? Okay, yeah, that's worse. [smirk] Of course, that *is* a regulatory change.
Re:How do you know?... Re:You're full of FUD
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Natural Capitalism
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1)"knowable": what does Bill Gates know about the value of an intact ecosystem (I use BG as the hypothetical winner in the bid for privitizing the commons simply as a convenience).
Gates doesn't need to "know" the value of an intact ecosystem -- the market will tell him, by bidding up the value of those resources at stake. That's the point. Prices are a valuation feedback mechanism. People love to damn money, but often miss the fact that its the only method to measure inter-human values on any scale.
2)"social": surely there are other values than "social" - at least, true conservatism ought to realize this.
I use the term loosely. I'll define it as "the cumulative cost/benefit net of competing alternatives within the market as a whole."
3)value: the capitalist economy can only place a value on things it can buy and sell. What is the "value" of species x or y? You don't know. There need to be places where things can play out without appeal to the valuation of our bean-counting economics.
What's the value of a human life? What's the value of love? Of sex? Of Linux? We place value on such things every day, by virtue of what we give up in order to pursue them. How does a smoker value his or her own life? No smoker is ignorant of the health risks associated with smoking, yet many of them quite consciously choose to continue. Why? They're placing a value on their own life span.
The situation is no different when measuring species X or Y. Valuation is conducted by individuals -- what is their net evaluation given the information and alternatives available? More importantly, what makes you think that some one else's valuation is more important than yours or mine?
How do you know?... Re:You're full of FUD
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Natural Capitalism
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You don't remove tragedy-of-the-commons incentives by privitization; you do it by putting a tax on what is now simply "externalized" by corporations.
Please explain to me how privitization does *not* resolve the tragedy of the commons. Given several property in a resource, each participant is incented to maximize the knowable social value of the use of that resource. This is *precisely* the problem of the commons.
And they can feel free to pass on the expense - just about everything you buy is artificially cheap because of externalities.
This is entirely true. But *by how much?* You don't know. Indeed, you *can't* know without a method of valuation, which taxation cannot provide. cf: Ludwig von Mises' Human Action
Yes, exactly!... Re:You're full of FUD
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Natural Capitalism
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You are asking exactly the questions that are my point.
I say I have a right to burn my tires, you say the acrid smoke from the fire is going to give you cancer.
Yes, and if I can demonstrate that your burning is harming me in some way, then you aquire a liability, and we have a negotiating opportunity. Perhaps you *love* to burn tires, but my risk of cancer is only minor. So I tell you that I'll charge you $500/day to compensate my increased risk of cancer. If you accept it, it demonstrates that your value of the burning is greater than my cost. If you decline, then clearly it *isn't.*
Or can I buy a big piece of land and set off a nuclear bomb on it? What if there's some wind and the fallout blows over to your land?
Again, exactly the point. If your actions create a harm to me, then there is liability and you can compensate the liability rationally -- allowing us an opportunity to negotiate a charge.
Or with an ocean: can I dump toxic waste in my part of the ocean, even if it's going to drift into yours? Only if I give you permission to do it. Else you are aquiring a liability by damaging my property.
Or how about fish? What if I put a lot of fish food in my part, so all the fish from everywhere else in the ocean swim off your part?
Same situation.
You may be wondering why this would offer any benefit over regulation, and the answer is: measurement. If you choose to compensate me for the harm of burning tires, then we've compared values and your choice makes sense. If we cannot come to agreement, then you cannot create that negative externality, and the social cost is not borne by those absent in the transaction.
Regulation provides *no method* to measure cost/benefit of particular resource consumption methods. Only the market can place relative value on heterogenous choices.
Yup, it did... Re:This may annoy some people
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Natural Capitalism
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There a three ways in which markets fail to maximise welfare in the way the theory tells us that they should.
Who's theory?
1 Externalities...
Which are created by the absence of liability and property in a given context.
For clarity's sake, we should recognize that there are positive externalities as well as negative ones. It's really the negative ones that concern us the most. Negative externalities are created by the structure of common law not permitting a liability on expenses.
2 Imperfect information...
Imperfect information is a constant condition, regardless of the system. The only question is: which system provides the best incentives to spread information? Markets have been logically and empirically demonstrated to be the most effective conduits of information exchange
3 Imperfect competition...
While I disagree with the terminology behind "imperfect competition," the alternatives leave us with no way to determine the relative values of heterogenous goods. That is, only the market provides a mechanism to even postulate the possibility of perfect or imperfect competition. All centrally controlled systems function in a realm of fiat pricing, which might better be called *unperfect* competition.
The answer to these questions is government regulation.
How on earth do you reach that conclusion? Governments are not infalliable (to solve externalities), omniscient (to solve imperfect information), or selfless (to solve "imperfect competition.) So how does government participation ever resolve any of these issues?
In fact, as von Mises explained in the 20's and as was so aptly demonstrated in the former Soviet Union, centrally planning cannot *ever* work simply because it provides no calculative mechanism for determining relative value. In the absence of pricing, how do you know whether the cost/benefit of eating chicken is better than the cost/benefit of eating brocolli?
No proposed solution for the environment could possibly be *worse* than regulation -- where rationality is utterly abandoned in light of the total immeasurability of the consequences of laws!
Are you sure you want to get into a lenghty discussion on the difference between capital goods and capital? Do you really want to incite the full wraith of the Austrians?
Somehow I don't think/. could handle that.
Thanks at least for recognizing the references. I suppose "utility function" per se is not what I object to so much as "bliss point" which comes across as a poor attempt at a singular Pareto optimality. But utility function itself implies a degree of calculation that flies in the face of time, uncertainty and disequilibrium.
It just makes no sense. You'd have to privatize oceans, air, everything. And how do you privatize oceans or air, when what I do in my part of the air or ocean can easily get into your part? It's laughably stupid.
General right-of-way easements for transport has been a feature of real estate property rights since their inception and are well integrated into common law. The situation would be no different with oceans or air.
What's the alternative? Give over control to bureaucrats and politicians? What was that about "laughably stupid?" See the very book you linked to.
Unfortunately, your professor is an idiot.
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Natural Capitalism
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"Utility function!?!"
This stuff is so outdated. He might as well be teaching Keynes.
Free-market approaches to environmentalism have been around for decades. Debunking mercantilist theories goes back a hundred years, with the best known analyst in recent years being Julian Simon This stuff has been on the web for a while, as well. While the book might prove interesting, the point behind it is old hat.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm claiming that *Perens* is claiming moral worth in free software -- not because it's software, but because it's free. Software -- communications technology in general -- is of incredible value. But I don't know that it can be describe as *moral* value.
A commercial competitor to PGP for crypto-secured communications: Lotus Notes. It is also well-verified, and not particularly expensive. That's just an example off the top of my head.
Understand, I'm not saying that these things aren't valuable. I'm saying that *free* software, as such, doesn't have value -- I'm saying that I think the claim of some transcendental nobility, which Perens implies in his post, is hogwash.
Free software is great. I love it. I use it everyday. But people who write it and support it are not moral crusaders. I reserve that label for the Jeffersons, the Ghandis, and the Einstein's of the world.
How pretentious!
Every human rights organization in the world has the option of using any of a dozen commercial encryption products with no more risk of exposure to repressive government than with PGP. That has nothing whatsoever to do with free software.
Computers and software, as valuable as they may be, have this difference from a meeting in a public square: you are not reliant on anyone else to be able to speak your mind in a public square. To broadcast ideas on the internet, you must have people willing to help you (computer manufacturers, software coders, telecommunications companies, site hosts, etc.) Crying in a public square demands no positive action from others.
Do not confuse the right to speak your mind with the right of others to refuse to help you.
If someone else controls your software, you do indeed have the potential for someone to control your communications *with that software*. But this do not mean that commercial vendors for software who withhold their source code are working with "the man." Commercial institutions form synergistic relationships according to the demands of the market, and for every threat of a Microsoft colluding with the FBI for exposure of personal secrets, there's a L0pht and a slashdot to find out about it and tell the world.
When I think and consider the people who are "empowered" by free software, I am happy for them. But I find no reason to believe that their access to software has *moral worth*. It is no more fulfilling (probably less so) then their access to clean water or pharmaceuticals -- both of which are provided all over the globe by institutions of every sort, from commercial to charitable to governmental.
Do not overestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks. We are players in a market, and as such we serve the public. How much we ask for in return is not indicative of our worth, but how much we *get* most certainly is.
Thanks
Flynn777
The problem with the 'Monkey Piss' name is that it is too easily turned into an epithet. 'Monkey Pus', obviously an undesirable association, will instantly be used by corporate detractors. Mock web site and fake ads will immediately start using a parody logo feature a festering sore on the ass of a simian, guaranteeing ridicule the world over. Competitive ads will feature tags lines like 'Monkey Pissing into the Wind' or 'Tired of being Monkey Pissed off?"
No, 'Monkey Piss' is just not the right choice.
I'd recommend 'Monkey Spunk.'
"it would be like suing a gun maker for making guns because people are using them to kill other people"
This happened in New York state. The gun makers lost. I believe it was Smith & Wesson that chose to leave the consumer gun market as a result.
Or perhaps you were just being ironic, and I missed it.
Anyone who thinks this has remained ignorant of 2 very important projects:
1) Blizzard's Warcraft III
2) Valve's TeamFortress 2
Warcraft III is a bit different than an RTS -- it's really an RTT, Real-Time Tactical game. Action will focus on smaller party size, not unlike more recent party-oriented games such as Baldur's Gate and Diablo 2. Rather than a party of 6 or 8, though, players will work with a squad of a dozen or so -- with required specialist and leadership roles. This will compel force-mixing nicely, breaking out from the old RTS problem of the "superunit" that allows any player to dominate.
TF2, on the other hand, will present an RTS idea where the objects being direct on screen are actually *OTHER PLAYERS IN FIRST-PERSON SHOOTERS!* This is about as exciting as 'net team play is likely to get in the next few years, and if you haven't checked out what Valve is doing in this regard, I'd highly recommend stopping by their web site. The game will feature some great technology -- but more importantly, it will feature game play ideas that are brilliant evolutions from what we seen today.
Is the RTS dead? Perhaps in the form of "gather resources, build units, advance technologies, repeat." But they are far from dead.
Consider the possibilities of RTS scenarios in which the units are real people! Morale, fatigue, situational awareness and ability to command will become more important that click-speed and fps.
Forget digital cameras and cell phones for a minute -- let's just consider good ol' fashioned written word. How does the IOC expect to prevent journalists from ESPN.com from simply buying event tickets and running quick write-ups about them?
If score results and highlights are posted on a 15-minute delay, and television coverage is on a 15-hour delay, how much interest will US audiences still have? Most prime time Olympics viewers are white collar -- which means they will read the written web coverage at work.
The IOC can keep out cameras, if they handle events like a rock concert -- with bouncer/ushers roaming the stands. They can't really keep out cell phones, though. How tough would web-based radio coverage be? A lapel-mounted mic to a cell phone dialed into an office across town could record the entirety of an event without trouble.
What is the legal ground for preventing this? Are they expecting to put a fair-use agreement on the back of every ticket? What is Australian law on freedom of the press?
The irony is that if they *would* formulate agreements with 'net sites, then they could contractually limit their actions. But by refusing outright to grant them press privledges, they have no rights to limit anything they do! I hope some people get in there and cover it just out of spite.
I can understand the IOC wanting to protect their coverage -- the amazing part is that they are failing to do EXACTLY THAT!
I just want to clarify a bit here about the consequences of crop failure in a free market context. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof.
Let's say a given region which normally exports food has a bad spell and must import food. What happens to the price of food in that region? Obviously, it goes up. After initial speculative pricing, it will tend towards a level equal to the cost of food in the nearest exporting markets plus the transaction cost of processing and shipping.
But what of the demand? Well, people will *demand* food theoretically right up to the point of suicide if they are allowed. That is, demand is almost completely inelastic because *not* having food is a sure recipe for getting no other values -- 'cause you'll be dead.
Sophisticated markets have the ability to provide for such circumstances through financing. That is, by spending future capital today to pay for temporarily increased prices.
This is exactly what happens in free-exchange markets. Say, for example, between US states. Crop shortage in Minnesota this year? Yeah, wheat prices go up, but the rest of the midwest bread basket covers the difference quite comforably. And as markets advance, the world's best analysis possible is placed against these factors by playing commodity futures markets to stablize prices.
So why don't we see the same effects globally? Because these markets are not permitted in many countries where starvation is prevalent. If people are simply not allowed to bid up prices for food, then there's no possibility of market planning in anticipation of those prices!
Out of all the things economists disagree, the Law of Comparative Advantage is the one that virtually all agree upon. And that all food shortages ever are -- time-cycled instances of comparative advantage. When such trades are blocked or nullified, the only guarantee we have is that somewhere, available resources are diverted into less useful purposes.
This goes just as much for IMF handouts and charity food drives as it does for farm subsidies and trade barries. Diluting incentives to plan for the future is as harmful as anything.
"Travelin' though hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, kid! You could hit an asteroid field or a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick."
-- Han Solo
Rajat Bhargava wasn't a co-founder of Interliant. Interliant was originally WorldCom (before those LDDS-guys started doing business in the US), and was started by Eric Carmichael, Eric Sachs and Mathew Wolf. I knew half their senior staff.
When they started, they were the only successful public Lotus Notes network in existence (nobody but the two Erics could figure out how to run one.) They branched into more web and private networking stuff with the advent of Lotus' Domino, and eventually merged with some other company.
*sigh* I can't stand it when people lie on their resume.
I wish I had some moderator points. That was a fantastic refernce. Thank you!
Bove was protesting global corporatism? Read the article, brightboy...
"They were protesting against US duties on French cheeses."
Was McDonald's responsible for the US duties on French cheese? One might even argue yes, but it still begs the question of why the US government is permitted to impose duties on French cheeses in the first place.
You see, the problem was, is and will forever be that the US government takes actions threatening the relationships of US citizens around the world. Whether it's butting in to every border-dispute in the Mideast, imposing import restrictions on other nations' products (ever heard of the Law of Comparative Advantage?), or arbitrarily handing out taxpayer money through the World Bank -- as long as the US government continues playing favorites in foreign policy, American citizens will be at risk all over the globe.
Does Bove dislike McDonald's? Probably. Do the citizens of Millau not want a MickyD's in their town? Perhaps. If they don't, and there are enough of them, why don't they just buy out the owner? Clearly there are enough people who *want* a McDonald's to incent the franchise to come there in the first place. Have you considered their desires in this equation?
Katz, you have to be the single worst political analyst I've ever read. Worst, because not only do you have no understanding of the issues involved -- you insist on putting up an air of sophistication that any high schooler could undermine. If you think the purpose of the Founding Fathers was to establish a nation where a company could have its private capital destroyed by the whim of a vandal, without protection of law, I suggest you read the initial draft of the Declaration, which refered to Life, Liberty and *Property*.
And for those who refer to the Boston Tea Party as a protest against big business, get the facts right. The East India Company was a royal charter company -- which means they were essentially an extension of British government interests, owned by the Royal family, granted military-backed monopolies who used captured prisoners as slave labor. They made Microsoft look like the FSF.
Thomas Paine author of "Common Sense," "The Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man" is well-known American patriot and deist.
The two are pretty far apart in all but age.
It's also worth noting that the printing press was invented around 1437, and was hardly revolutionary when either "A Modest Proposal" or "Common Sense" were published.
There's no such thing as an "equilbrium price." This is a fiction of economists, and has been thoroughly debunked.
Prices exist in a state of *disequilbrium*, fluxating with the changes in knowledge and preferences of economic actors. They *tend* towards a theoretic equilibrium, depending on the speed of information flow within the relevant market. Compare, for example, the consistency of crude oil prices from transaction to transaction vs. the inconsistency of, say, designing a web site.
The price for any given transaction is somewhere between the minimum the seller is willing to accept and the maximum the buyer is willing to pay. Each party's profit on the exchange is the difference between the *actual* price and their threshold price.
As far as whether this is capitalism -- well, I'll agree that the patents involved are questionable at best. I just thought there should be no delusions about "equilibrium price."
Streamlined government!?! I couldn't imagine anything worse. We must be thankful today that government is so utterly incompetant that it cannot take away freedoms at an even faster rate.
Years ago, I read Frank Herbert's stories about the Bureau of Sabotage. The premise of the stories was that well-meaning reformers had succeeded in eliminating all the red tape and bureaucratic rigmarole that make government so inefficient. The result was a government so streamlined, so effective, that it posed a far greater threat to liberty than ever before. Laws were passed at a much higher rate, and enforced vigilantly. Delays and oversights due to incompetence or graft were a thing of the past; now there was no escape from the everpresent eye of the state.
I suggest you think twice, Katz.
The privitization proposed really refers to regulatory oversight. Though they may exist as independent commercial entities, power utilities are heavily regulated -- particularly in the arena of "universal service" requirements. This is ultimately the same reason telco companies have sucked for so long.
That's not to mention the regulatory rate burdens they face.
Real costs of electrical power are not yet borne by the purchaser. Even putting pollution externalities aside, prices are not accurate conveyers of information on the matter, due to regulations.
Napster is not like radio. Radio stations pay royalties to ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN for the music they play.
That's an enormous difference.
And externalities have been repeatedly demonstrated to be the one exception to this rule. Putting aside externalities, the only definition of "social welfare" is the cumulative welfare of the individuals within a given society.
I don't see why this is true. Surely anything that affects welfare that is not governed by the price mechanism should concern us equally whether it increases or decreases welfare.
What is the problem with positive externalities? If I like beautiful rose gardens, so I maintain one in my front yard, and you sit across the street and enjoy it, this is a positive externality. If it is not internalized -- that is, if I do not erect a fence and charge you admission to my rose garden -- the result is only underproduction of rose gardens. This is only a social opportunity cost, rather than a real cost. A benefit which could have been incurred is not, but there is no involuntarily forfeited value -- I would still choose to maintain my rose garden.
But that's a damn good question! [grin]
Maybe this is true, but it is not important. What is important is how imperfect information affects welfare, and this is different under different systems.
It's imporant if you propose regulation as the solution! That's a mechanism notorious for working with information as far from perfect as one is likely to achieve!
In most cases, I agree, markets are the best solution. However, in some cases imperfect information can cause markets to unravel. Think of the case of buying health insurance for the old people. In this case the insurance companies are likely to know less about peoples health than their potential customers. Less healthy people will buy more health insurance than the more healthy ones, so the insurance company will increase the price of insurance. This will mean if you are healthy, there will be no reasonably priced health insurance. In case like this, markets do not work, so there is a good case (i.e. it would improve welfare) for universal health insurance for provided by the government and paid for through taxes.
I disagree strongly, for one simple reason: the aquisition of knowledge itself has a cost. By requiring extensive differentiation between rates for policy holders, an insurance firm is not permitted to lower its *marginal* rate by cutting costs on information gathering.
Everything an insurance company does is based on aquisition and processing of information, in the form of actuarial metrics to determine the statistical relationships between health conditions and risk of health problems. But the gathering of that information is subject to the law of returns, and eventually the information gathered about the policy holder is more expensive than the resulting savings in the risk-weighted return. How, then, can you justify spending the money? It's as wasteful as clear-cutting forests.
Like this: there are two types of solution. (1)Those involving unregulated free markets and (2) those that involve some government intervention. In cases where solutions of type (1) fail, try solutions of type (2) if there is a good reason to think that doing so would increase welfare.
I have a hangover. There are two solutions: (1) take aspirin and rehydrate myself and (2) drink more alcohol. In cases where solutions of type (1) fail, should I try solutions of type (2), even though I know that's exactly what caused the problem in the first place?
There is such a good reason, namely: correcting market distortions would move us closer to the welfare maximising situation that would obtain were markets perfect.
But how do you identify a "market distortion?" You must have information to compare to. And you run into a calculation problem there. Its Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: the calculation to predict reality is more complex than the reality itself. You can't outguess the market -- you can only let individuals voluntarily exchange value for value and observe the results.
This is the bit of your post I agree with. I was not suggesting the complete abolition of pricing. Only intervention where prices do not reflect the approximate true value/cost in term of welfare of an action. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear!
The point is that *you can't empirically know* whether the prices reflect the value/cost. You can only make that determination a priori -- which means you must do so from first principles. Economics (good econ, anyway) tells us that economic actors behave purposefully to maximize subjective value given best knowledge, and given that, ensuring the atmosphere of maximization of voluntary exchanges is the method to get that best reflection.
Try this one. Suppose we abolish all property rights. In this case there would not even be an incentive to look after those parts of the environment that we had previously owned.
You just trying to come up with something I'll think worse? Okay, yeah, that's worse. [smirk] Of course, that *is* a regulatory change.
Gates doesn't need to "know" the value of an intact ecosystem -- the market will tell him, by bidding up the value of those resources at stake. That's the point. Prices are a valuation feedback mechanism. People love to damn money, but often miss the fact that its the only method to measure inter-human values on any scale.
2)"social": surely there are other values than "social" - at least, true conservatism ought to realize this.
I use the term loosely. I'll define it as "the cumulative cost/benefit net of competing alternatives within the market as a whole."
3)value: the capitalist economy can only place a value on things it can buy and sell. What is the "value" of species x or y? You don't know. There need to be places where things can play out without appeal to the valuation of our bean-counting economics.
What's the value of a human life? What's the value of love? Of sex? Of Linux? We place value on such things every day, by virtue of what we give up in order to pursue them. How does a smoker value his or her own life? No smoker is ignorant of the health risks associated with smoking, yet many of them quite consciously choose to continue. Why? They're placing a value on their own life span.
The situation is no different when measuring species X or Y. Valuation is conducted by individuals -- what is their net evaluation given the information and alternatives available? More importantly, what makes you think that some one else's valuation is more important than yours or mine?
Please explain to me how privitization does *not* resolve the tragedy of the commons. Given several property in a resource, each participant is incented to maximize the knowable social value of the use of that resource. This is *precisely* the problem of the commons.
And they can feel free to pass on the expense - just about everything you buy is artificially cheap because of externalities.
This is entirely true. But *by how much?* You don't know. Indeed, you *can't* know without a method of valuation, which taxation cannot provide. cf: Ludwig von Mises' Human Action
I say I have a right to burn my tires, you say the acrid smoke from the fire is going to give you cancer.
Yes, and if I can demonstrate that your burning is harming me in some way, then you aquire a liability, and we have a negotiating opportunity. Perhaps you *love* to burn tires, but my risk of cancer is only minor. So I tell you that I'll charge you $500/day to compensate my increased risk of cancer. If you accept it, it demonstrates that your value of the burning is greater than my cost. If you decline, then clearly it *isn't.*
Or can I buy a big piece of land and set off a nuclear bomb on it? What if there's some wind and the fallout blows over to your land?
Again, exactly the point. If your actions create a harm to me, then there is liability and you can compensate the liability rationally -- allowing us an opportunity to negotiate a charge.
Or with an ocean: can I dump toxic waste in my part of the ocean, even if it's going to drift into yours? Only if I give you permission to do it. Else you are aquiring a liability by damaging my property.
Or how about fish? What if I put a lot of fish food in my part, so all the fish from everywhere else in the ocean swim off your part?
Same situation.
You may be wondering why this would offer any benefit over regulation, and the answer is: measurement. If you choose to compensate me for the harm of burning tires, then we've compared values and your choice makes sense. If we cannot come to agreement, then you cannot create that negative externality, and the social cost is not borne by those absent in the transaction.
Regulation provides *no method* to measure cost/benefit of particular resource consumption methods. Only the market can place relative value on heterogenous choices.
Who's theory?
1 Externalities...
Which are created by the absence of liability and property in a given context.
For clarity's sake, we should recognize that there are positive externalities as well as negative ones. It's really the negative ones that concern us the most. Negative externalities are created by the structure of common law not permitting a liability on expenses.
2 Imperfect information...
Imperfect information is a constant condition, regardless of the system. The only question is: which system provides the best incentives to spread information? Markets have been logically and empirically demonstrated to be the most effective conduits of information exchange
3 Imperfect competition...
While I disagree with the terminology behind "imperfect competition," the alternatives leave us with no way to determine the relative values of heterogenous goods. That is, only the market provides a mechanism to even postulate the possibility of perfect or imperfect competition. All centrally controlled systems function in a realm of fiat pricing, which might better be called *unperfect* competition.
The answer to these questions is government regulation.
How on earth do you reach that conclusion? Governments are not infalliable (to solve externalities), omniscient (to solve imperfect information), or selfless (to solve "imperfect competition.) So how does government participation ever resolve any of these issues?
In fact, as von Mises explained in the 20's and as was so aptly demonstrated in the former Soviet Union, centrally planning cannot *ever* work simply because it provides no calculative mechanism for determining relative value. In the absence of pricing, how do you know whether the cost/benefit of eating chicken is better than the cost/benefit of eating brocolli?
No proposed solution for the environment could possibly be *worse* than regulation -- where rationality is utterly abandoned in light of the total immeasurability of the consequences of laws!
Somehow I don't think /. could handle that.
Thanks at least for recognizing the references. I suppose "utility function" per se is not what I object to so much as "bliss point" which comes across as a poor attempt at a singular Pareto optimality. But utility function itself implies a degree of calculation that flies in the face of time, uncertainty and disequilibrium.
General right-of-way easements for transport has been a feature of real estate property rights since their inception and are well integrated into common law. The situation would be no different with oceans or air.
What's the alternative? Give over control to bureaucrats and politicians? What was that about "laughably stupid?" See the very book you linked to.
"Utility function!?!"
This stuff is so outdated. He might as well be teaching Keynes.
Suggest that he read Menger and Bohm-Bawerk.
Free-market approaches to environmentalism have been around for decades. Debunking mercantilist theories goes back a hundred years, with the best known analyst in recent years being Julian Simon This stuff has been on the web for a while, as well. While the book might prove interesting, the point behind it is old hat.