From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Mon Dec 09 2002 - 12:05:50 MST
> (Damien Sullivan <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu>):
> On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 04:22:05PM -0600, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> I don't deny rents have benefits.
> I also don't deny extreme economic concentrations might not be harmless.
> In the reductio case, monopolies are usually considered to be rather
> distorting of 'free markets', and oligopolies may or may not be much
> better, depending on complicated factors. And the moral/social
> justification for a high concentration of wealth seems lower for simple
> ownership/rent than for someone who (reductio again) physically made each
> and every item he sold and happened to sell a lot of items.
I actually see more potential problem with oligopolies; a true monopoly
can never exist for long without forcible exclusion of competitors, but
a small oligopoly (for example, the tobacco companies or large media
companies) can offer the public much of the price and quality benefits
of true competition while still excluding newcomers, stifling innovation,
and controlling information flow.
As die-hard a capitalist as I am, I am not one of those who turns a
blind eye to the idea that concentrations of wealth and power--even
when acquired though entirely legitimate, even honorable, means--can
tend to corrupt those who hold it. I think it's important, though,
to be restrained in exercising force against such corruption, and it
should be targeted in the right place. For example, the suits
against Microsoft generally focus on some of its contract terms and
pricing which are not corrupt at all, since they are free choices;
but then they ignore the things MS has done that are actually wrong
and need fixing, like the breach of contract with Sun, and their
false claims of supporting public standards. Sure, power can corrupt,
but let's not then fight power itself--let's fight just the corruption.
> As for Michael Dickey's
> "In what kind of situation could anyone ever actually own all the farmland in
> a country? A massive communist or socialist state is the only place in which
> such a thing has ever happened."
>
> ... uh, ever hear of feudalism? The land reforms various Latin American
> countries performed in their socialist periods were breaking up the huge
> landholdings of colonial times and distributing them to the peasants who'd
> been working them.
Feudal lands were generally acquired by force of arms, not purchase,
so there's more justification for the use of force to break them up and
put them back into the hands of the people. Indeed, I think what
finally killed feudalism as a viable system is the crossbow--a relatively
inexpensive weapon that could be used by a farmer of ordinary strength
and could penetrate armor. Feudal lords and tax collectors tend to
behave themselves more with the threat of a bolt in the chest.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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