Re: Boycott Microsoft

(This was posted last week, but never showed up on my server or in Deja News).

Doug,

The main difficulty in making oneself understood in any discussion of a political issue is that the field of politics doesn't exist in a vacuum. It isn't an isolated body of knowledge unrelated to anything else. In fact, politics as a body of knowledge is like the top floor on a skyscraper: that floor is supported by all the floors below. The principle of individual rights, being the starting point of politics as a body of knowledge, is like the flooring between the third and fourth floors of a four story
"skyscraper".

The definition of individual rights that I gave, "A moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context" hints at the name of the third floor: morality. Rights are a link or bridge between morality and politics, between the principles that guide a man's actions as such, and the principles that guide his actions when living in a society. Naming reason as man's basic means of survival (i.e., his basic means of guiding his actions) hints at the name of the second floor: epistemology, or the study of how we know what we know.

In my judgment, the source of the disagreement between you and I lies _there_ on the second floor of the skyscraper. At this point, however, I don't think it would be productive to try and clarify the concept of reason I'm relying on. The best I can hope for is that you and others will see that there is much more than meets the eye to this issue, and be motivated to investigate the "skyscraper" on your own. In hopes of providing some of that motivation, I'll address your hypothetical, and then try to tie that back to the importance of understanding the "skyscraper".

The way I have to answer your hypothetical is simply to dismiss it out of hand as completely arbitrary, completely unreal and disconnected from this world. "Cornering the market" on grain such that a baker or bakers cannot make a lliving has never happened in the entire history of the world, and it is absurd to think that it can or will (and please don't limit your thinking to just grain and bakers in this example). First of all, what good does it do the man who corners the market on grain, which would be a very difficult and expensive thing to do, to simply let it all rot in a warehouse? Do you really think this is a believable scenario? Do you really think an idiot like this (and he would be an idiot) would have the smarts, ability, and ambition (not to mention $) to do this? Even if he did, how long do you think the effects of his actions would continue to impact bakers? In the worst-case scenario, wouldn't the idiot manage this only one time? Surely he won't be able to absorb the high cost of doing this more than once. Surely the high demand for grain and the non-existent supply would make it very profitable for _many_ other farmers to grow grain that they won't sell to the idiot. Finally, isn't it simply ludicrous to think that lots of idiots like this could exist (let alone succeed) in any particular market?

In the real world, in a society that hasn't descended to barbarism, totalitarianism, etc., in a country like the U.S. which is at least semi-civilized and free, this scenario can't and won't happen - it's a complete fantasy that is not a proper basis for supporting any government regulatory policy, including anti-trust. Additionally, there is no proper comparison between the above scenario and Microsoft, Netscape, Sun, et al. Nobody has cornered the market on operating systems, and no computer manufacturer is _unable_ to make computers (one might fail due to bad business decisions, but that's not the same thing). The same holds true for browsers and other applications. There is no danger of the people employed by Netscape, Sun,etc. being left without any way to support themselves. Even in the incredibly improbable event that Microsoft _literally_ corners the market on computers and software, it should be clear that all the people who worked for the vanquished competitors would be able to find work with Microsoft, or work with companies that don't compete against it.

Now, I could make a similar analysis of _all_ the alleged dangers of an economy not subject to anti-trust or other regulation, but the bottom line is that it isn't _necessary_. All such alleged dangers come down to one erroneous belief: freedom isn't practical. Cashing in on the point of my
"skyscraper" analogy, that belief comes down to "morality isn't practical",
which in turn comes down to "reason isn't practical". Grasping that these beliefs are all erroneous is the only way to grasp the truth of the claim that anti-trust is anti-freedom, anti-morality, and anti-reason, and hence harmful to human life across the board.

If people insist on focusing on concrete examples, they should read the writings of the Classical and Austrian economists (Von Mises, Bastiat, etc.) and their popularizers (e.g. Henry Hazlitt) - nobody has ever demonstrated the practicality of freedom better than them. For those who want to investigate the "skyscraper", a good net resource is http://www.capitalism.com, which has links to several sites with lots of essays, commentary, and suggestions for where to go for even more information.

Mark Peters Received on Mon Jun 01 1998 - 00:00:00 CDT