Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!isishq!doug From: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Who Controls the Network? Message-ID: <934.23A16D71@isishq.FIDONET.ORG> Date: 10 Dec 88 22:38:47 GMT Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters Lines: 121 jd>From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) jd>In article <2082@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>, nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick jd>Taylor) writes: jd>> jd>> I submit that small businesses are just as likely ... jd>> to accept megabucks from Big Brother as Big jd>> Business is. jd> jd> This may be true, but irrelevant to the question as to whether a jd> computer network should reside with the legitimate sector of the jd> economy or the coercive sector. Long whistle. Well that is loaded language! First of all, who "legitmates" any sector? Is it ideology or is it something else. Secondly, what makes you thing the one is any less coercive than the other? If you remove any dominant central authority with coercive power and a monopoly of violence, you end up with numerous competing powers . . . The result of full laissez-faire is feudalism. While it may be ideologically more pure, from your viewpoint, it has little else to recommend it. jd>> I would further submit that Big Business might well see it as jd>> in their best interests to take over these small businesses. jd>Who, if anyone, jd>> will be able to stop them? Oh no, we're back with Big Brother jd>again! jd> jd> Once again, the way most Big Businesses get to be super-big is with jd> the help of Government. Eliminate Government's power to tilt the jd> economy toward certain segments, and you have more balance. jd> The idea of asking Big Brother to rein in Big Business is like asking jd>a pusher to restrain an addict. Ok, granted. But the goal of most small businesses is to become big businesses. If they succeed, they become the drug pushers on the block. So how does your schema get us out of competitive, destructive, a-moral power struggles? jd>> jd>> Jeff seems to regard it as axiomatic that the government of jd>the USA equals Big Brother. jd> jd> I'm not prejudiced -- I equate every Government on Earth with jd> Big Brother. Ok. That's a good starting point. jd> jd> jd>> ... the business community is composed of the same type of jd>> people ... jd> jd> If the business community is indeed that bad, why give them a juggernaut jd> with which to facilitate their actions, that juggernaut being jd> omnipotent Government? Better to make them earn their gains thru jd> better goods and services than thru political pull. Now there you betray true naivete. Better goods and services sometimes facilitate the growth of a business, but you just have to glance at General Motors, NBC, AT&T, IBM, Apple, etc., to see that there is a *lot* more too it than Adam Smith (or Karl Marx for that matter) ever anticipated. You profoundly misunderstand power, in most of its nuances. Indeed, one of the most popular services in the USA is its government which I'm sure you would be the last to call "better". jd>> I understood the SUPREME in Supreme Court to imply that it jd>was the highest jd>> court in the land. It would appear, from the Missouri case, jd>that it is more jd>> akin to the SUPREME in Chicken Supreme! Why has this been allowed jd>to occur? jd> jd> Because Federal judges are almost all Democans and Republicrats and jd> won't go out of their way to gain justice for anyone else. This jd> was not the first time a Supreme Court ruling in favor of jd> alternative parties has been successfully ignored. It's not the first case of a Supreme Court ruling being ignored!! Neither the courts nor the govenment has a monopoly of power in the USA, various elites do. Those elites have sufficient power to ignore either the gov't or the Supreme Court as their self-interest requires. If you feel you need more extensive documentation on these points I'd be happy to provide it. jd> jd>> Now the really awkward question : What are you doing jd>about it? jd> jd> Plenty. I write letters to the editor, submit Op-Ed pieces, jd> support or oppose candidates and referendum questions, talk jd> to anyone who will listen, and have twice run for office. jd> jd> I have three small children. It would be nice were they to jd> grow up in a fully free society. And what pray tell, does "free" mean? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. I get the feeling that you think I should know the answer. A lot of propaganda tells me the US is a "free country", that here in Canada I live in the "free world", that close military alliances with the UK and the US help keep Canada "free" and all that. Free from what? Free to do what? Meanwhile you tell me I'm not free at all, and my common sense is very much aware of numerous restrictions on total freedom. I'm not free to do lots of things I sometimes get a mind to do. jd> jd>Laissez faire, laissez passer. jd> Yeah? =Doug -- Doug Thompson - via FidoNet node 1:221/162 UUCP: ...!watmath!isishq!doug Internet: doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG