From: John M Grigg (starman125@lycos.com)
Date: Sat Sep 02 2000 - 19:58:24 MDT
Paul Hughes wrote:
The rights of ownership instill on their owners a certain freedom and autonomy from
tyranny. So now you see corporations increasingly moving away from selling and replacing
it with leasing. .NET anyone? At first you could pay just once $49.99 to own your
software. But with leasing, you will pay $10 today, and tomorrow and the next month, and
so, and so on. "And oh, we decided that to continue to use our service, its going to cost
you $30 a month! Sorry, we found out that you used our service to disparage our companies
good name - service terminated!"
And at the current clip of mergers and consolidations, what choice will you have left? If
the only game in town is the large corporation, then that means that for a good part of
your life if you care not to live in a tent, you will have to give up your individual
sovereignty and freedom while employed. And without the so-called government that
everyone around here likes to knock around, they would probably own us full-time - company
leased house, company leased cars, company owned shops. Thank god for the semblance of
law and a legion of law enforcement to back it up. What am I saying? This is all a
first. But it has become obvious to me that corporations could give a damn about me and
my freedoms. At least the government has the pretense of a constitutional guarantee of
freedom.
The biggest 'bug' I see in a free-market is there are no gauruntees of freedom -
Everything is up for grabs!!! All that matters is the almighty buck, he with the most
money wins!
(end)
I find this scenario absolutely terrifying and so likely to happen in at least some areas such as software. What do the rest of you think? If corporations use their lobbying muscle successfully(without a public outcry to stop it) I think we could see our rights and liberties as individuals taking a big step backwards.
sincerely,
John Grigg
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