"At first glance, the FSF and the Commission attacks on Microsoft appear to be unrelated. But the common thread is this: the attacks are based on a lack of faith that consumer demand will lead a market to where consumers want it to be. It is based on a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it."
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Member since:2005-07-08
In my view the IT business especially in the USA is, in many ways, turning away from a truly free market more and more. The situation is starting to look a bit like some scifi dystopias where big corporations rule and small businesses and customers have less and less power.
What kind of a free market allows big corporations to patent ideas like basic computer algorithms? IP patents are usually means to put competitors out of the market, to give big corporations ever more power, not a way to give each player equal chance to use the same ideas and, then let the customers decide, in a free market, what product they see the best.
However, big corporations are often not able to see "free market" from the point of view of small business not to mention customers. They see things from their own point of view where often shareholders, big corporations, and big money matters most. Free market to them is too often a corpotocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
or plutocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
where those big corporations should be allowed to do anything, and anybody else should just humbly bow down in front the the big money.
Anybody who has even the slightest idea about IT business and Microsoft knows that MS has often been using really rude business tactics in order to prevent free competition. It is just a cold fact.
In a free democracy and in a free market, it is necessary that more and more people try to prevent the biggest corporations like Microsoft from trying to own the whole world. If it might be too late in the USA perhaps already owned by corporations(??), at least it must be done in the EU and in other still relatively free parts of the world where not everything is yet decided in a few big corporations in order to make their owners ever more richer.
Edited 2007-04-10 19:14
Member since:2005-07-08
Too often in macroeconomics some people still want to see things from a black-and-white point of view where the two alternatives are either a leftist, totally state controlled economy (called communism) or a completely laissez fair market liberalism (called "free market") where corporations are practically above/beyond all the law. Naturally neither of those extreme alternatives work too well.
In a well-working free and democratic society and economy, there must be some regulations that also companies and big corporations must follow. That doesn't mean that the market couldn't still be free for any kind of business as long as that business is done according to the rules like laws agreed on in the democratic society.
If, however, big corporations are allowed to work above/beyond the democratic regulations, do what ever they please (like some corporations like perhaps sometimes Microsoft seems to want?) and/or are allowed to decide (by bribing, lobbying etc.) which rules are made laws and followed in the economy and society, the society will become a totalitarian corporatocary, ruled by a few corporate leaders. It would be just another form of totalitarianism, not very much different from Natzism or Marxism. Hardly a sustainable and successful model for any society or economy in the long run.
Edited 2007-04-10 20:20
Member since:2005-07-09
The funny thing is, in a free market, IP other than trade secrets wouldn't exist since IP is a govern created construct. If you believe in a completely free market, you should be in favour of abolishing all IP laws since they place artificial constraints on what a business can and can't do with things they purchase. This is especially the case since Intellectual Property laws are actually more strict than Physical Property laws (Proof, if I buy a car from you I can make some minor modification and resell it. If I buy a book or software from you, I can't without violating copyright.).
So if you support IP, you can't rely on the completely free market argument and have to agree that some government regulation is necessary.
Member since:
2007-04-10
The assumption that a "free" market will solve any problem and nothing bad will ever happen and it can only benefit consumers is completely ridiculous. Sure, a free market can benefit consumers, provided there's sufficient competition, a feasible cost of entry etc.. Proudhon had a good point when he said "Competition kills competition", though. In other words, a free market based on competition will become monopolised and very unfree without any kind of intervention. Free market fundamentalism is as stupid as state Marxism.