[8330] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Socialism, A-130 and the information poor
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sean mclinden)
Sun Nov 14 11:14:12 1993
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1993 10:50:10 -0500 (EST)
From: sean mclinden <sean@dsl.pitt.edu>
To: James Love <love@essential.org>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.85.9311131645.A4320-0100000@essential>
re: F.W.Dodge story
C'mon James. Exploiting the taxpayers by using the Federal Government to
create a market which you then keep them out of is as American as the
Declaration of Independence. The very same thing happened when the
National Library of Medicine sponsored the taxpayer-funded development of
software for the Human Genome Mapping Project which they *gave* away,
only to be sued by one of the recipients (who remarketed the software,
commercially), for unfair competition! (And there are thousands of other
exmaples of this in health care and other industries).
The difficulty is created when those who haven't found out how to rip off
the taxpayers begin to resent those who have, but that's economic Darwinism.
Perhaps this is what is so attractive about Libertarianism. If you limit
goverment investment you, at least, reduce the chances that private
enterprise will find a way to legally pick your pocket. Then, what you
spend your money on becomes a matter of your own choosing (I'm not a
Libertarian, myself, but the economic argument is becoming more and more
attractive.)
Sean
