[PLUG-TALK] Band-Aids and Cures (was Fair Use, etc)

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Sun Mar 31 04:34:47 UTC 2002


On Sat, 30 Mar 2002, Dylan Reinhardt wrote:
> > The point is that capitalism has no mechanism for rewarding
> > cures, only band-aids.  And capitalism has no mechanism for
> > rewarding the creation of abundance, only scarcity.
> 
> Oh, come now Jeme.  I realize that's what belief in the Labor Theory
> of Value would lead one to suppose, but blanket claims like that are
> just silly.

I don't see the relationship between the labor theory of value and the
above statement of mine.

> A company which produces a "band-aid" solution to a problem has a
> strong incentive to see that problem go uncured.  After all, a cure to
> the problem would disrupt their profit stream, right?

Yup.

> But that's what capitalism is all about: competition, not stagnancy.  
> What better chance do we have of seeing a cure than for some
> competitor to come along and attempt to tap into an existing market
> with a better product?

You're thinking in terms of early capitalism.  That's not how it works
anymore and hasn't been for almost a century.

Today, the band-aid manufacturers would buy the upstart, sue him to
oblivion (whether they have a case or not, nearly ANY finite cost in the
short term is worth the protection of a permanent revenue stream), have
his "product" declared illegal, or worse.  Mostly, it's the first and
second that happen.

> And abundance?  Let's say that someone *did* come up with cold fusion
> or some other small, abundant source of energy.  Naturally, the whole
> petrochemical industry would be threatened.  In a capitalist system,
> such a product could rapidly take over the energy market.  In a
> socialist system, the displacement of all the people working in
> existing energy companies would actually be a consideration.

This isn't related to abundance.

However, I would argue that an intelligent public would follow the law of
the Iriquois, in this matter:
Make every decision with respect to its impact on the seventh generation,
even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.

If we must suffer today for a better tomorrow, then so be it.

I see no reason why the displacement of workers in a destructive field
should be a concern in a society that has solid support and education for
displaced workers.

> It is socialism, not capitalism, that is more innately hostile to
> technologies that create abundance.

NOT capitalism?  I mean, I might buy an argument (but not the one above)
that showed that socialism resists changes in technology that provide
abundance, but I don't see how such an argument would negate the fact that
capitalism does as well.

Abundance is the natural end of technology... it is the reason for
industrialization.  Every system resists change and abundance of a
formerly scarce resource is certainly a significant change to a system.

But while abundance frees the people, it hinders profit-making.

> The problem here is that you are looking at what the US has and
> calling it capitalism.

No, I was looking at what the U.S. would be had it not started mixing its
economy in the 1930s.

> This is, in essence, the exact same logical error made when someone
> examines the history of the USSR and calls it a failure of communism.
> The idea and the execution are vastly different things.

In fact, I specifically pointed out this same error in thinking in this
very thread a couple of days ago.  I'm not making that mistake.  When I
said that capitalists do not support public education, I was clearly not
making the mistake of confusing the mixed economy in the United States
(where there is public education) and pure capitalism.  Go back and read
and if you find a specific instance where I attributed the effect of a
mixed economy to pure capitalism, show me.

> It is certainly the case in the US that many forces act to favor
> existing companies, to sustain old products, to inhibit, restrict,
> mitigate, and prevent change.  If we can agree that stagnacy is the
> real problem, we can take a clearer look at what causes it.

The real problem isn't stagnancy, but increased repression and oppression
of the masses.  We're not standing still, we're going backward.

> At the risk of making a gross generalization of my own, it's been my
> experience that younger people tend to embrace change and older ones
> tend to resist it.

That's a bit facile, but effectively true.  I would say that one's
resistance to change is based largely on how long one has lived with a
situation unchanged.

> The reasons this might be the case are hardly difficult to discern:
> for starters, older people tend to be more heavily invested in how
> things already are.

Yeah, see above.

> So what system is best prepared to encourage (or even allow) new
> generations to bring thier ideas and enthusiasm to the table?  Is it
> the system where all decisions are made collectively?  Or is it the
> system where one can establish a niche and work for change one
> decision-maker at a time?

Why can't one establish a niche and work for change one decision-maker at
a time in a democratic socialist society?

When you say "the system where one can establish a niche and work for
change one decision-maker at a time", you're implying that there's only
one such system and it's not socialism.  I disagree on both counts.  
There are many systems in which that's possible and there's no reason why
you can't do that in a socialist economy.

And to go back to your argument about the young vs. the old in
establishing change, I ask you how the young are supposed to bring a
realistic challenge to the old who are not only well-invested in the
established way of doing things, but also well-established in society as
both authorities and holders of wealth.  The old have inordinate power in
capitalism because they have a lifetime's amassed wealth to levy against
the heavily mortgaged youth looking to secure a place in their new world.

And none of this addresses the simple fact that capitalism relies on greed
and lust for power as the primary motivators of man.

> It's certainly no mystery that I'm about to argue that capitalism is
> better suited for encouraging and sustaining social change and
> economic mobility. What might be less obvious is that I believe many
> of the problems in our current execution of capitalism stem from too
> *little* capitalism, not too much.

If the world hadn't started implementing anti-capitalist legislation
(reflecting the massively anti-capitalist will of the people), the
Rockefellers, Carnegies and Rothschilds would have subsumed all industry
by this point in time, we'd be choking on silt across the entire western
hemisphere (a la London 1900), and we would either have 50/50 telephone
service or the streets under our feet would be clogged with a morass of
wires, cables and pipes haphazardly strung or long unused and abandoned.

> When the government gets involved in any market, there is an
> unavoidable benefit granted to existing companies.

And when there is no public governing of a market, an oligopoly or
monopoly emerges that raises the barrier of entry into that market and
destroys competition that might impinge upon existing profit margins.

All systems are resistant to change.

> The main reasons that you cite for being *against* capitalism are many
> of the same reason I'm so strongly *for* it.

You're strongly for it because it leads to greater destruction of personal
freedom for the masses, decrease in median wages and an increase in the
power of the wealthy, is based on reward for the most efficent
satisfaction of two of the seven deadly sins, and offers no encouragement
for a person who acts upon his better nature in spite of those two sins?

Those are the major reasons I cited.

> I favor self-determination, work that has dignity, and an abundance of
> opportunities.

The above are basic Enlightenment values and you'd be hard-pressed to find
a philosophy today that does not embrace those goals.

> Individuals should have the same opportunities as large companies.

Either a large company is a large collection of people and clearly have
more opportunities for their greater numbers or it is a non-corporeal
legal fiction and clearly isn't even open to the same opportunities as a
flesh and blood human being.

What do you mean?

> And though there are limits to how well it all works in practice, it
> is quite possible to assert opportunity and self-determination in the
> US.  I've managed to make a living of it, as have many other people on
> this list, I suspect.

I don't think I've made any attempt to argue that it's not possible to
"manage to make a living".  I think we can shoot for something higher,
however.

> Yes, abuses can result when power becomes highly concentrated in the
> hands of very few.

In capitalism, wealth IS power and the primary motivator in capitalism is
the accumulation of wealth.  The long-term effect is the concentration of
power in the hands of the few.

> I think we agree on that... but I would assert that capitalism works
> *against* this problem, not in support of it.

I don't see how.  In a time when the wealthy were not productive,
capitalism served to tax the idle rich by providing opportunity for the
creative and industrious.  But the rich have learned the rules of the game
(largely by playing it well from a privileged birth) and have merely
"cornered the market" on creativity and industriousness.

While it's true that every person born will have a chance of having a
creative and industrious nature, the opportunity to express it decreases
as you descend the economic ladder and increases with the percentage of
people below you.

The wealthiest 5% of Americans control more than 90% of the wealth (and
20% of those people control 50% of that).  The average American CEO earns
326 TIMES as much as the average worker in his own company (and that
doesn't even count wealth accrued via outside investment of that surplus
income or the sizable wealth into the average CEO is born).

Consider also that the average white male in this country has more wealth
at the age of 18 than the average black male is likely to accrue at any
point in his lifetime.  This is one of the more subtle effects of
capitalism's favoring the status quo.

> Excessive governance, on the other hand, is the very definition of
> highly concentrated power.

But you said that power was a problem when it was concentrated in the
hands of the very few.  A democratic government dilutes the power of the
few and concentrates the power of the many.  (I understand and sympathize
with those who dispair that effect of democracy, but that's not the point
here... the point is to show that democratic governance is NOT
"concentration of power in the hands of the very few.")

> I have read _Lies My Teacher Told Me_ and several works by Howard
> Zinn. Have you read Hayek's _The Road To Serfdom_?

No, I haven't even read _Lies My Teacher Told Me_.  I don't know that I
will, either.

J.
-- 
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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