I think my fellow Austrians are being unfair to microsoft. It does not overly rely on the government to protect itself. Its registration keys are a wonderful market solution to the free rider problem, one that would allow it to continue on without government IP laws.
The anti-trust suite against it was the result of its lack of lobbying money in DC. I’m sure that plenty of people are getting their pockets lined now though.
Yet they’re not tangents. The problem is that MS is one firm that benefits from government protections, and thus is a piss poor example to use.
-Jon
Ecoli,
Care to chime in on what you think? You have a few different schools of thought presented to you. I believe that any coercive action (funny how people try to redefine that word) that is used to quell competition does nothing to enhance productivity or innovation. An entity (Microsoft in this case) is expending resources not towards providing a product/service but solely dedicated to keeping other resources from competing with them. As rule of thumb (everything has exceptions), do you think this behavior enhances or hinders economic progress?
I also contend that unfair rules helping said monopolies furthers the need for anti-trust laws. It’s inevitable for economic and political power to collude. No system has been able to keep them apart because it’s too ingrained in human nature to pursue ever more power. Setting up a system that helps hinder, and at times even destroy, this collusion is a good thing.
If someone has a proven way to keep this collusion from happening at all then I’d love to hear it.
If powerful economic and political interests are often in collusion with each other, how do you stop monopolies from using anti-trust laws against possible competitors or members of a cartel from using the laws to make sure that discipline in maintained within the cartel?
The latter has happened with many regulatory agencies - they were created simply as tools for cartels to be artificially maintained, to prevent the cheating which normally occurs under free market conditions.
I absolutely agree that anti-trust laws can be abused and totally agree that regulatory agencies are abusive as well.
Am I right in assuming that you all agree with my contention that it’s inevitable for economic and political power to collude in any system? Given that, I see anti-trust laws as the lesser of two evils. It at least creates an avenue for destrucion of these alliances. As for regulatory agencies, wouldn’t it be helpful if there were an anti-trust type avenue that could be pursued with them as well? Yes, it would be abused but i believe the results would be better than they are now. In an imperfect human world, I see this as the most practical application.
What exactly do you mean by this? That powerful companies will always go to the state for subsidies and protection and politicians will always protect and subsidize certain industries to further their agendas? If so, the ideal solution seems to me to be the removal of the state.
It is only inevitable, though, when the politicians are allowed to control the fates of companies. When the government is kept out of the business world, at least mostly, then there is no benefit for big business to collude with them. But when the government can control who wins and who loses in the marketplace, then they get involved. A major way of doing this is anti-trust. Walter Block often makes the point that it is impossible to not be violating anti-trust laws, because if you are setting prices higher than your competition, then it is profiteering and exercising monopoly power; if you set prices lower, then it is predatory pricing and dumping; if you set prices the same as your competitors, then it is collusion and cartelization. Since it is impossible to not violate anti-trust, or at least impossible to not be “investigated” for anti-trust violations and brought to court, the decision of who to use these laws on is absolutely arbitrary. Remember now who controls the government - the lobbyists and big corporate interests. What do you think those anti-trust laws will be used on? Anti-trust laws were created by politically-connected companies to destroy their rivals and have been used for that purpose since.
What I mean is that, over time, companies will tend to utilize state power to help them and vice versa.
Removal of the state?? If we remove the state then who will protect society from violence? Look to post-occupied Afghanistan for a good example of no state. Anarchy prevailed and warlords ruled with the Taliban becoming the strongest. Again, human nature is violent and, as a result, a powerful enough state is the lesser of two evils needed to ensure a thriving society. Seriously, you aren’t really an anarchist are you?
I understand that, under ideal conditions, state and private power would stay separated. Unfortunately, human beings are the subjects here and our innate behavior undermines those ideals. Because the state will always have political power, the private sector will want a piece of it and, conversely, the public sector will always want a piece of economic power as well. Collusion is inevitable. Do you think Dell and Sun carried more political clout than Microsoft? Hell, no. Anti-trust is abused but it is also used to break up some of this collusion. It helps pit powerful entities against each other.
Hold that thought.
Maybe you should type ‘anarchism’ into the search engine on the home page.
My “anarchist” sentence was more in gest so I don’t want to go off on another tangent. We can discuss it in another thread if you like. 
Another case examination: Ma Bell (AT&T).
Bell became a monopoly through collusion with government power – then they were hit with an anti trust ruling in the 1970’s. One can argue that they shouldn’t have gotten there in the first place but “should” only applies in the theoretical world. The fact is they did because of our fallible human condition. So, did breaking them up help our economy or hinder it? Was it an abuse of power to help some other monopoly? If so, who – and why do you believe we would have been better off not breaking AT&T up?
It would seem to me that we are diverging into seperate arguments here:
If one believes that “economic power” pursues “political power”, then the logical outcome would be biased laws and regulations enforcable at will by whoever holds the clout (anti-trust laws).
If one believes other political machinations (i.e. IP laws) come first and then other ( i.e. anti-trust) laws come after as proposed solutions to restore the balance (the essence of the failure of socialism), so be it. Austrians contend a more elegant solution exists:
If one were to remove either the state or the ability of economic power to influence political (state) power and simply let things ride in a free market, no biased, artificial advantages could exist. No entrepreneur could do anything that another could not. Therefor monopolies are irrelevant because they do not exist. If one entrepreneur does somthing more efficiently than another and keeps his prices low, logic would have it that people would buy from him. If he raises his prices (being the mean monopolistic bastard some perceive him to be) then he opens the door for another entrepreneur to do things just as efficiently as he and undercut his prices, thus eliminating the so-called monopoly.
If one contends that a free market system is unworkable because you remove an incentive to invent and develop due to the absence of IP laws, then that is an entirely different argument.
If monopolies dont exist (a true free market) then we do not need IP laws because there will always be competition (every man/woman is an entrepreneur). If one cannot compete on price one will compete on efficiency (develop and invent).
It is hard to discern what might happen in a true free market as opposed to what happens now because we left that path a long time ago. Human creativity leads us to wonderous places. It is hard to imagine a world so radically different from ours.
Not quite. They pursue each other. It’s part of the human condition to seek power in all forms.
Again, a great ideology but one that is not fully compatible with human behavior. How do you stop the natural tendency for the state and private sector to collude with each other? Laws and rules are eroded and rewritten all the time to acheive these ends.
It’s not that hard to figure out as homosapiens are actually pretty simple. We have many millenia of clan behavior hard-wired into our brains and no arbitrary set of rules can overcome that programming. The beauty of the free market system is that it best harnesses those natural tendencies to the benefit of civilization. Unfortunately, I have seen no system that can properly contain our innate desire to pursue ever more status and influence amongst our peers.
It’s far less than 99%, and they’re the laggards…and everyone I’ve met who’s used Vista hates it…
Well i would have to say then that you ask the million dollar question. What form of society is most conducive to liberty, without letting it to be trampled by those who practice it. Essentially, when a person acts to better their situation, does morality or even ignorance have part to play in their decision making process? If one is free to do what they wish, they are free to do harm to others willingly or ignorantly. A government is designed to remove or divert liberty based on judgment of a set of inputs. If a person, of free will, is making those judgements, of course at some point that person will act in his best interest. This may be at the detriment to others. If that is what you’re saying, then i doubt that anyone will ever have a sufficient answer.
But that doesn’t make anti-trust laws good.
Making up numbers and anecdotal evidence won’t change the facts. 2007 OS market share:
Source:
You mean like government “regulators” make up numbers?
-Jon
You’re right. That is the dilemma and I think an answer should be the goal of all humanity. I believe it’s the final piece of the puzzle, so to speak.
Again, I agree :). Good and necessary are too separate things, however. So long as monopolies come into existence, we need some avenue for breaking them up.
So, because the government lies a lot (though not all the time), this statistical report from a private firm is also a lie? Why are you now resorting to such far-fetched logical fallacies?