From: Alex F. Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 23 2002 - 13:10:51 MST
I'm still on my self-imposed academic haitus from Extropian and un-Extropian
activities, but I thought I'd briefly resurface to bring you this tidbit:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html
I forget which intellectual property apologist it was I last argued
with that challenged me to produce evidence that "Big Media" is
attempting to sabotage free software. I cited DMCA as an example, I
believe. Here is an even more outrageous illustration of my point. How
hard exactly do we need to be beaten over the head with legislation
like this before we realize that:
1) For data to behave like the convenient physical commodities media
corps would like them to be, a level of surveillance and censorship
never before seen in history would be required.
2) Corporate lawyers and execs have no problem whatsoever with pushing
for such a level of surveillance and censorship as far as the
consumers and taxpayers will let them. In fact, "fiduciary
responsibility" laws in some cases would penalize corporate officials
for acting with maturity or common sense if doing so will in any way
diminish the short-term value of the corporation's stock.
3) This surveillance and censorship will be paid for by the consumers
and taxpayers without any benefit to them, and this payment will
ultimately be enforced on the coercive machinery of the state. In
short, if big government did not exist, mega-corps could not exist
either. Their partnership is anything but true capitalism.
4) Companies are not individuals. They are not recognized as such in
the constitution, nor in common law. Individuals have rights,
individuals can own property. Individuals write music, software, and
books. If individuals want to partner together for an entrepreneurial
venture, power to them. However, the assets of this venture are the
joint property of those individuals, not some imaginary entity called
the corporation. You have no reason to abide by the legal fiction of
corporate personhood except to avoid punishment.
5) What makes matters worse is the doctrine of limited corporate
liability. Actions have consequences, and by limiting the legal
liability of stockholders for the actions of the executives they
appoint, those consequences are not being made to vanish into thin
air. Instead, they are being absorbed by the consumers, the employees,
and random people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the
corporation except for being downwind from a plant it owns or living
in a jurisdiction whose lawmakers it has bought.
...I don't know what an economy dominated by AOL/Time-Warner and
Disney (backed by legislation structured to maintain this dominance at
all costs) would be categorized as, but it is no longer a capitalist
one in any recognizable sense.
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