From: Billy Brown (ewbrownv@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Aug 30 1999 - 22:47:59 MDT
O'Regan, Emlyn wrote:
> But the argument is that everything will be perfect once nanotech arrives,
> removing all cartel/monopoly situations due to scarcity. If nanotech
doesn't
> remove scarcity, then it doesn't. So we still have monopolies/cartels (I'd
> venture to say that they could be quite stable, at least over finite time
> periods), and so the economic version of coercion is still an option in
> Billy Brown's belt retreat.
Not really (or at least, it isn't serious enough to be a big issue). It is
already impractical to maintain a monopoly in any kind of manufacturing
enterprise, because you can't prevent a competitor from setting up shop and
driving prices back down to a reasonable level. Services are generally not
subject to these problems for similar reasons. That leaves only raw
material resources and energy as possible foundations for a monopoly in a
truly free society.
Now, we can easily see that energy is not going to be an issue until we get
pretty far into megascale engineering projects. The sun puts out more power
than any reasonable number of ordinary humans has any use for, and we can
supplement that with our own fusion reactions if need be.
Nanotechnology ensures that we can arrange atoms to form whatever structures
we want, which means there can't be any rare, impossible-to-duplicate
natural compounds. Since even relatively rare elements are present in space
in very large quantities, that doesn't leave anything to supply a basis for
a scarcity of natural resources.
Note that none of this requires that anything be free, or even particularly
cheap. I'm not promising a utopia, after all. It does, however, indicate
that we can reasonably expect a completely free market to function quite
efficiently without any need for government-enforced anti-monopoly measures.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
ewbrownv@mindspring.com
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