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: <1084.23BB8DEB@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 29 Dec 88 02:58:56 GMT
Organization: International Student Information Service -- Headquarters
Lines: 106


 
 
 jd>From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) 
 jd> 
 jd>In article <934.23A16D71@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>, Doug Thompson writes: 
 jd>>  
 jd>> The result of full laissez-faire is feudalism.  
 jd>  
 jd>  Wow!  I'm used to having right-wingers call me a commie because I 
 jd>  don't want to nuke Managua, and left-wingers calling me a fascist 
 jd>  because I don't think starting one's own business should be a 
 jd>  capital crime ... but to be told that advocating a free market, 
 jd>  individualistic philosophy makes me a collectivistic statist 
 jd>  takes the cake.  I guess next he'll say the result of consistent 
 jd>  atheism is Fundamentalism, or vice-versa. 
 
Ok, set the propaganda and rhetoric aside and think for a minute . . . 
 
In an environment in which everyone maximizes his individual gain, the 
most powerful people will do the most maximizing. Pretty 
straightforward. So you end up with a bunch of petty-chieftains 
engaging in endless intrigue (read wars) to gain a little more power. 
 
Feudalism emerged LONG before central government control over 
anything, and is the result of the lack of a strong central 
government. 
 
Laissez-faire is the "primordial" or "natural" state of the human 
species, and so is feudal organization, more or less, where the best 
bullies in the neighbourhood rise, like the scum that they are, to the 
surface.  
 
Suggestion: read a history book. 
 
 jd> 
 jd>> But the goal of most small businesses is to become big  
 jd>> businesses.  
 jd> 
 jd>  True.  But many don't make it.  And those that do, on the free 
 jd>  and open market, can't translate that bigness into an ability 
 jd>  to abuse the customer without consequence.  That sort of 
 jd>  monopolistic or oligopolistic position requires the help 
 jd>  of Government.  Look at McDonald's - probably the biggest 
 jd>  burger chain at all.  But they keep their prices down and 
 jd>  their service good because they haven't gotten The State 
 jd>  to legislate Burger King out of business. 
 
Gimme a break!!! McDonalds has to server the WORST, crappiest, most 
tastless piecce of dead cow-flesh ever to have the name "hamburger" 
bestowed upon it. All they have going for them is standardization and 
high potency advertising. Then there is their emplyee-relations policy 
. . . now that really is *feudal*. 
 
 jd> 
 jd>  Yes ... that "*lot more too [sic] it" is Government.  Again 
 jd>(and, 
 jd>  Elise, forgive me for repeating myself) the oligopolies and 
 jd>monopolies 
 jd>  we see came about through legislation.  Several of the firms 
 jd>you 
 jd>  name have strong competition, by the way -- some competing 
 jd>against 
 jd>  others in the list. 
 jd> 
 jd>But let's get back to the goal of this group, talking about the 
 jd>future of computerdom.  Should it be owned and operated by  
 jd>the Jim Wrights, Ed Meeses, etc., of the world, by a monopoly 
 jd>arranged via State coercion, or by those whose interests are 
 jd>served by doing a good job? 
 
I'm all for meritocracy, where those who do it best, do it most. But 
just look at McDonalds and you see that the "free market" (excuse me 
while I puke) can't do it. Just look at the Navy (excuse my while I 
laugh) and you see that big government can't do it. 
 
Can people do it? Yes, but only in an environemnt of trusting 
cooperative endeavour, not one of cut-throat competition OR 
legislated morality. 
 
I'm half way on your side . . . those you have observed to be bastards 
I also think are bastards, by and large. But I'm half way against you, 
I don't think warring feudal lords present a more attractive 
alternative. 
 
The free market is not a meritocrocay, it is an aristocracy of sorts, 
and just as vile and destructive as any image of BIG GOVERNMENT IN 
MOSCOW that you can conjure up. 
 
The future of computerdom? Well, I think it will belong to the people 
for a good long time because it is impossible to really control as 
long as "we the people" have our own computers :-) 
 
=Doug 
 


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