Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Who Controls the Network?
Summary: Reply
Message-ID: <2435@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 13 Dec 88 13:44:48 GMT
References: <934.23A16D71@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 57

In article <934.23A16D71@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>, Doug Thompson writes:
> 
> The result of full laissez-faire is feudalism. 
 
  Wow!  I'm used to having right-wingers call me a commie because I
  don't want to nuke Managua, and left-wingers calling me a fascist
  because I don't think starting one's own business should be a
  capital crime ... but to be told that advocating a free market,
  individualistic philosophy makes me a collectivistic statist
  takes the cake.  I guess next he'll say the result of consistent
  atheism is Fundamentalism, or vice-versa.

> But the goal of most small businesses is to become big 
> businesses. 

  True.  But many don't make it.  And those that do, on the free
  and open market, can't translate that bigness into an ability
  to abuse the customer without consequence.  That sort of
  monopolistic or oligopolistic position requires the help
  of Government.  Look at McDonald's - probably the biggest
  burger chain at all.  But they keep their prices down and
  their service good because they haven't gotten The State
  to legislate Burger King out of business.



>  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. 

  Yes ... that "*lot more too [sic] it" is Government.  Again (and,
  Elise, forgive me for repeating myself) the oligopolies and monopolies
  we see came about through legislation.  Several of the firms you
  name have strong competition, by the way -- some competing against
  others in the list.

But let's get back to the goal of this group, talking about the
future of computerdom.  Should it be owned and operated by 
the Jim Wrights, Ed Meeses, etc., of the world, by a monopoly
arranged via State coercion, or by those whose interests are
served by doing a good job?

Jeff Daiell

-- 
       "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those 
   who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality."

                                        -- Dante