Euston Manifesto

[a_majoor]

We can call this construct "Couchism", if you like, but you are simply pushing a rope. Human nature is all about self interest, not the collective. As I have tried to show in other threads, whenever individual self interest is unleashed, the results are amazing.

In the ancient world, they Mycenaean culture revolved around servicing the needs of the "palace" (a form of feudalism seems to have existed in Mycenae). The overall population density was low, wealth was highly concentrated and Mycenaean culture extended through Greece, and parts of the Aegean. After the fall of the Palace culture and the dark ages, essentially the same people, (speaking the same language, worshipping the same gods etc.) had developed a much different social organization revolving around the free ownership of land, where the land owners built the economic, political and military structures to maintain their social position we recognize as the Classical Polis. Classical Greek civilization spread across the Mediterranean and into Asia Minor. Those cities which developed or adopted Democracy indeed used juries appointed by lottery and strict term limits, because they understood human nature, and wished to limit the opportunities to abuse power.

This allowed Athens, above all others, to create and maintain an Empire (the Delian League), even in the face of opposition by Sparta and her Allies (the Peloponessian League) and the vastly larger and potentially wealthier Persian Empire. Only a combination of bad luck (the plague), Imperial hubris (the Athenian invasion of Sicily) and the combined resources of all her enemies could bring her down, and even then, Athens regained a prominent position in Greece prior to Phillip destroying Geek culture and imposing Macedonian rule.

Elizabethan England, Holland and Venice were liberal (for their age) states, and thus able to withstand the might of far more powerful Empires and States such as Spain, the Ottoman Empire and France under the Sun King Louis XIV.

In the modern age, the growth of the Asian Tigers and the remarkable rise of Ireland all resulted from a heavy dose of liberalization, deregulation and tax cuts.

Although there may be individual people who, through poor planning, bad choices and ill luck miss out, the overall lesson that can be derived from comparative studies across different times and cultures is that if people are free to work for their individual self interest, the net result is a positive one for their society.

 

[a_majoor]

Here is a manefesto I can live with:

http://www.freedomparty.on.ca/about/about.fpo.htm

The Freedom Party of Ontario ("FPO") is an officially registered political party in the province of Ontario. You might think of an FPO government as one that will be socially "liberal" and fiscally "conservative".

Fiscally, an FPO government will provide a level playing field by making sure that nobody resorts to coercion, fraud, cheating, or other forms of wrong-doing in their efforts to pursue a better standard of living. An FPO government will greatly lower your tax burden. It will also give you more power, control, and choice over your health care, education, auto insurance and electricity needs.

Socially, an FPO government will draw the line at consent: what consenting adults of sound mind choose to do with one another, at their own expense, is not something with which an FPO government will concern itself. At the same time, because we believe that children and the mentally infirm lack the ability to consent, an FPO government will protect them from violations of their life, liberty or property. Freedom Party MPPs will oppose laws that discriminate on the basis of genetic make-up or peaceful lifestyle choice.

An FPO government will be pro-freedom: we believe that government does not have the right to violate your life, your liberty, or your property when you have done nothing wrong. Government's duty is to protect your freedom by protecting your life, your liberty, and your property from those who would resort to violence and other forms of coercion.

An FPO government will be pro-democracy: we believe that government's authority comes only from the governed, and that the actions of government should be judged by the same ethical yard-stick as the actions of the governed.

We believe that FPO is well-suited for the values held by Ontarians. We encourage you to read our election platform, The Right Direction http://www.freedomparty.on.ca/election2007/platform.page.htm

 

[a_majoor]

Here is a link to a very long, but interesting and illuminating article:

http://www.mises.org/story/2099

A short exerpt which touches on the "New Deal"

Every element in the New Deal program: central planning, creation of a network of compulsory cartels for industry and agriculture, inflation and credit expansion, artificial raising of wage rates and promotion of unions within the overall monopoly structure, government regulation and ownership, all this had been anticipated and adumbrated during the previous two decades. And this program, with its privileging of various big business interests at the top of the collectivist heap, was in no sense reminiscent of socialism or leftism; there was nothing smacking of the egalitarian or the proletarian here. No, the kinship of this burgeoning collectivism was not at all with socialism-communism but with fascism, or socialism-of-the-right, a kinship which many big businessmen of the twenties expressed openly in their yearning for abandonment of a quasi-laissez-faire system for a collectivism which they could control…. Both left and right have been persistently misled by the notion that intervention by the government is ipso facto leftish and antibusiness.

While I do not agree with the author's definition of fascism, the analysis is pretty spot on, and the rest of the article is alsowell worth your time and effort.

 

[couchcommander]

>As such, our board members should do an excellent job of watching out for their own interests.

Oh, I'm sure they'll watch out for their interests.  I'm also sure they'll make a frigging hash of whatever business they are running.  I'm not sure how committees of amateurs are going to consistently outperform career executives, but maybe you can enlighten us.  I'd like assurance in advance, rather than frig up the economy irretrievably with a naively optimistic experiment.

The boards I propose would be diverse in their backgrounds. Average joe's are a large part of the involvement. The entire point is to democratize the entire economy.

However, I would not expect them to make complex decisions unassisted. Members of these boards would include the senior management, workers representative, as well as recognized experts in the field. On top of this would be people not involved on the board but assisting it - ie consultants, etc. Overall, you and I would have a lot of support in making informed decisions.

The most important aspect of citizen involvement on the boards, however, would not be to make technical decisions about manufacturing processes or human resources, but to oversee these decisions and ensure that they pass a "common sense" test, and will continue to serve the needs of the citizens.

Take for example an orange juice producing company. I wouldn't expect an average person to be able to decide on the technical aspects of orange juice, ie what oranges to use, how are they going to be concentrated, preservatives, etc. etc - I would however expect an average person to be able to tell if this orange juice tastes bad or is not making it onto store shelves (ie the Soviet effect).

Further, if a consultant or whatever advised them that the orange juice is contaminated or made with potentially life threatening ingredients - I would expect them to take action to stop it, rather than trying to cover it up or decide that even if there is a lawsuit, it will cost less than a recall (it has happened, more than one would think).

You ask me to prove that the performance would be better, honestly that is impossible given that it hasn't been tried.

My proposal would be to run it on a limited scale, ie a few test corporations, before jumping in with both feet. That way we would have hard evidence as to whether or not it is feasible.

a_majoor - I will make sure to read those articles.

 

[a_majoor]

The boards I propose would be diverse in their backgrounds. Average joe's are a large part of the involvement. The entire point is to democratize the entire economy.

However, I would not expect them to make complex decisions unassisted. Members of these boards would include the senior management, workers representative, as well as recognized experts in the field. On top of this would be people not involved on the board but assisting it - ie consultants, etc. Overall, you and I would have a lot of support in making informed decisions.

The most important aspect of citizen involvement on the boards, however, would not be to make technical decisions about manufacturing processes or human resources, but to oversee these decisions and ensure that they pass a "common sense" test, and will continue to serve the needs of the citizens.

Millions of people own shares in companies, either directly, as members of pension plans or as shareholders in mutual fund companies. Direct and mutual fund shareholders don't need hand holding, they just need to take the time to read the annual report and look at the value of their shares. Satisfied shareholders keep their shares, dissatisfied shareholders vote with their wallets.

I am not at home, so I don't have the reference at hand, but what you are advocating may be similar to Peter Drucker's vision of "Post Capitalist Society", which attempts to outline how a society could operate when the ownership of capital is largely in the hands of the workers (through their pensions and mutual funds), but they are not directly in charge of the engines of wealth: the pension boards and mutual fund companies have representation on the boards, but are responsive to the needs of the workers to maximize the values of their holdings. We see some of this already, the sheer size of mutual funds and pension board holdings make large segments of the market illiquid, companies are pressed into making short term decisions in order to maximize quarterly profit (rather than concentrating on the long term) and many opportunities exist to manipulate the market since although "ownership" is diffused, effective control is concentrated in few hands.

My proposal would be to run it on a limited scale, ie a few test corporations, before jumping in with both feet. That way we would have hard evidence as to whether or not it is feasible.

I suggest you find companies which have "CSR" mission statements or otherwise claim to follow "Corporate Social Responsibility" and start examining their annual statements over a period of years. If you are an economics or political science student, this would be a killer assignment; tell your profs I assigned this. I'm sure they will understand 

a_majoor - I will make sure to read those articles.

Enjoy!

 

[a_majoor]

Fredrich Hayek outlines the problem in a very eloquent fashion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

The economic calculation problem

Hayek was one of the leading academic critics of collectivism in the 20th century. Hayek believed that all forms of collectivism (even those theoretically based on voluntary cooperation) could only be maintained by a central authority of some kind. In his popular book, The Road to Serfdom (1944) and in subsequent works, Hayek claimed that socialism required central economic planning and that such planning in turn had a risk of leading towards totalitarianism, because the central authority would have to be endowed with powers that would impact social life as well.

Building on the earlier work of Mises and others, Hayek also argued that in centrally-planned economies an individual or a select group of individuals must determine the distribution of resources, but that these planners will never have enough information to carry out this allocation reliably. The efficient exchange and use of resources, Hayek claimed, can be maintained only through the price mechanism in free markets (see economic calculation problem). In The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945), Hayek argued that the price mechanism serves to share and synchronize local and personal knowledge, allowing society's members to achieve diverse, complicated ends through a principle of spontaneous self-organization. He coined the term catallaxy to describe a "self-organizing system of voluntary co-operation."

In Hayek's view, the central role of the state should be to maintain the rule of law, with as little arbitrary intervention as possible.

 

[couchcommander]

That last article is indeed on the money as far as it goes with central planning.

Central planning is far from what I am advocating however, as I too recognize the issues with having individuals trying to direct an entire economic system.

I preferr to leave control of the system in the hands of those who depend and rely upon it rather than some bureaucrat or even worse greedy majority shareholder. Ensures the system will serve their needs, rather than those who exercise control, which, as you pointed out, has the effect of promoting authoritarian methods.

 

[a_majoor]

EPISODE V

a_majoor: "couchcommander, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the political thread of Army.ca."

couchcommander: "I'll never join you!"

a_majoor: "If you only knew the power of the Austrian School. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father...

coouchcommander: "He told me enough... he told me you killed him."

a_majoor: "No... I am your father. Join me, and together we can rule academia as father and son!""

 

[couchcommander]

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

 

[a_majoor]

The authors of the Euston Manifesto are trying to revitalize the left, and considering the ease with which most of their arguments can be crushed, this is a vital project. (I need an intellectual challenge as well).

In the spirit of fair play, I am referencing another set of prescriptions to assist our bretheren out in left field:

http://taylor.textamerica.com/details/?r=4836758

A Primer for the Recalcitrant Left

1.  When discussing Canadian politics, try to stick to Canadian politicians and processes.  Dragging George W. Bush into the discussion every other sentence might be entertaining (and especially for us on the right), but try to remember that he lacks executive authority within these borders.  Canada has her own elected representatives -- George is not now, and never will be, one of them.

2.  Corporations are not monolithic soul-crushing oppressors.  Every corporation, large or small, has human staff on its payroll and human investors as its shareholders.  Many of these humans collectively making decisions eventually brings about action (or inaction) within these companies.  Some companies have unsavoury practices, but most don't.  Why?  Bilking the customer on behalf of the shareholder is never a good idea, because you end up with fewer customers and less revenue.  And less investors, because many of them are also, not coincidentally, customers.  If you don't like a company's decisions, fine; don't buy their stuff, write the PR folks, organise a grassroots campaign, whatever.  Demonising corporations themselves makes you look every bit as foolish as conservatives who paint the so-called mainstream media as one monolithic souless agenda-driven monster.  Individual media persons might be stupid or shortsighted, but the whole enterprise is not evil.  Same goes for employees and companies.

3.  It's not always Stephen Harper's fault.  Sometimes it's your own fault for not being organised enough, persuasive enough or consistent enough.  Sometimes it's just dumb luck.  It is never, ever, the result of a vast right-wing conspiracy.  It is not possible for the right to organise into a massive worldwide oligarchy any more than it was possible for communism to do so.  Remember, in the heyday of communism, there were many strains of nutball; Stalinism, Trotskyism, Titoism, Maoism etc.

4.  Please focus on the winners, not the losers.  Last election, every time You Don't Know Jack! Layton opened his mouth, he was mentioning St. Tommy Douglas, St. Stephen Lewis, St. Ed Broadbent.  I know this will come as a giant surprise to the left, but these last two guys are giant losers.  And not in the subjective sense of "their mothers dress them funny" -- in the objective sense of having failed to achieve their own goals.  Lewis, as leader of the Ontario NDP, contested the premiership in three elections and never once won the big chair.  Broadbent, as leader of the federal NDP, contested the prime ministership four times and never once won the big chair.  Meanwhile, we had two currently-serving NDP premiers -- Gary Doer of Manitoba and Lorne Calvert of Saskatchewan -- plus Bob Rae, former premier of Ontario and at that time, still a Dipper.  Try reminding people that you're not just starry-eyed hippies with no practical ideas; your party has governed and hell, is presently governing some provinces.

5.  Get serious on defence.  By that I mean come up with some policy other than thinly-disguised isolationism.

Seriously, guys.  I am not going to agree with 99% of the stuff you put forward anyway, but if you can get past this stuff, I guarantee your electoral prospects will improve dramatically.  And as entertaining as it is for us conservatives right now, an ineffectual left is a bad thing for the nation.

Yours, &c. Chris Taylor on 5/18/2006 6:07:11 PM

I still won't agree with you, but I will certainly listen with a lot more respect if you follow those simple rules.

 

[couchcommander]

2.  Corporations are not monolithic soul-crushing oppressors.  Every corporation, large or small, has human staff on its payroll and human investors as its shareholders.  Many of these humans collectively making decisions eventually brings about action (or inaction) within these companies.  Some companies have unsavoury practices, but most don't.  Why?  Bilking the customer on behalf of the shareholder is never a good idea, because you end up with fewer customers and less revenue.  And less investors, because many of them are also, not coincidentally, customers.  If you don't like a company's decisions, fine; don't buy their stuff, write the PR folks, organise a grassroots campaign, whatever.  Demonising corporations themselves makes you look every bit as foolish as conservatives who paint the so-called mainstream media as one monolithic souless agenda-driven monster.  Individual media persons might be stupid or shortsighted, but the whole enterprise is not evil.  Same goes for employees and companies.

I disagree, especially about the soul crushing (ask anyone who works for one, ).

On a more serious note, i still disagree.

*edit* long winded rant gone. Needless to say it probably just would have come across as "And the corporations, they sit there, all corporationy".

Short version? The current organization and structure of a modern corporation prevents said human beings within the organizations from being effectively responsible for their actions, other than if they effect the bottom line.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I question your last.  I've attended familiarization sessions on both the military and civilian side of life in which it was explained that a person could be held responsible (legally) for his actions irrespective of whatever the organization above said or did.

 

[couchcommander]

Effectively is word I would stress.

Read http://www.uswa.ca/program/content/3376.php . Notable exerpts:

Widely known as the "Westray Bill," these amendments were inspired by the deaths of 26 men when the Westray coal mine exploded on April 5, 1992.

Designed to punish those corporations which failed to protect the health of their employees or the public, the amendments marked a significant shift in the liabilities of organizations for the failure of their senior officers to act.

Today, two years later, the "Westray Bill" has faded from sight. Only one set of charges has been laid, and they were withdrawn...

This is an extreme example. I am mostly referring to everyday things; choices as to how a company is run, what is produced and how, etc.

The only effective responsbility of the employee is to their boss, which ultimately ends up with the shareholders, who are ultimately responsbile for nothing the company does.

Yes, legislation exists.... but... (see above)

 

[a_majoor]

Your idea of a corporation seems rooted in Newtonian Physics, gliding along in a frictionless frame of reference and only capable of effecting elastic collisions.

A Corporation is a person under law, and like a real person (i.e. you and I) is subject to many internal and external influences.

Management must plan product lines and allocate resources to create these products, in the hope they will be able to outdo the competition, make a profit and satisfy their existing shareholders. The have imperfect knowledge about the plans of their competitors, the market, government and natural forces which affect their environment. People who work within the corporation can effect the way the corporation is run, drones drag it down, while the bright sparks and high flyer's can raise it up. BTW Shareholders have the FINAL say in what a company does through their votes, and the Board of Directors has the ultimate responsibility in executing the wishes of the shareholders. (I agree many companies have shareholder slates and voting rules designed to circumvent this, but why would YOU become a shareholder in such a corporation?)

You yourself can choose to accept the way a corporation is operating (by buying its products on the open market, buying shares or choosing to work in it), or you can oppose it (buy competitor's products, make your own [i,e, go into competition], sell shares, refuse to work for the corporation).

Overcoming Inertia isn't the hardest problem in just Physics, apparently.

 

[couchcommander]

In my "the corporations, they sit there are corporationy" rant that I had removed (which I think almost should have kept), it is this fact which I highlighted as being their most dangerous aspect.

In terms of liability within a corporation, despite the fact that the voting shareholders have virtually all of the de facto power, they have absolutely no liability for anything the corporation, as a result of it's responsibility to them, does (other than to their own humanity... but history has shown how far that goes).

As I mentioned, furthermore, those people who are put in charge of corporations by said shareholders to act on their behalf are effectively, in all but the most extreme cases, free from responsibility as well.

This is just speaking about things that are currently illegal, much less things that are simply not compassionate.

What you have, in essence, is, as you pointed out, a legal entity with virtually all the same rights as a human being, except it has virtually none of the responsibility a human being has.

It's only purpose is to bring profit to the shareholders, and to provide well paying jobs for the management.

This is what, IMO, needs to change. A corporate entity should serve the needs of it's consumers, the wider society as a whole (this includes maintaining profitability), as well as rewarding it's workers fairly for their labour and especially those who further these priorities, rather than just being responsible to the pocketbooks of shareholders who have no responsibility.

I think these are priorities that you could agree with, in the end?

I would be interested in hearing your opinion though, as a relative expert (business finance is it?), as to how we should go about addressing my concerns, especially trying to accomplish my last?

IMO anywho.

(sorry for the CNN paragraphs, but I've found people, not you a_majoor or mr.sallows, tend only to read the first and maybe last sentence if it's actually formed correctly).

 

[a_majoor]

This is what, IMO, needs to change. A corporate entity should serve the needs of it's consumers, the wider society as a whole (this includes maintaining profitability), as well as rewarding it's workers fairly for their labour and especially those who further these priorities, rather than just being responsible to the pocketbooks of shareholders who have no responsibility.

From the Capitalist and Free Market side of the fence, I would suggest that a corporation which does NOT serve the needs of its customers will not be in existence very long, regardless of the internal structure (sole proprietor, partnership or corporation). All the people you mention are free agents, and work as far as their personal circumstances allow to their own self interest. (The crux of your argument seems to be they are not free agents, which I will answer below).

I would argue that much of what you see as amoral capitalism is in fact, the amoral use and abuse of State power to gain and maintain advantage. For the capitalist or trade unionist, it is often better (for them) to gain the sanction of the State in order to use the armed power of the State against real or potential challengers. Trade unions, for example, lobby for restrictive rules and regulations to limit the ability of employers to hire non union workers, the most extreme example is perhaps the Ontario Teacher's Federation which makes it almost impossible to remove a substandard teacher (hence my decision to use private education). Other employers have similar travails, GM looses about $2000/vehicle for every car it makes, while Nissan has an average profit of $1200 with its non union work force.     

The Nissan vs GM example is a good one, Nissan's North American plants are in "right to work" states, and in order to keep their highly skilled workers, Nissan needs to pay a competitive wage and benefit package. Other foreign automakers do the same. Where it is impractical or regulation makes it impossible to do so, employers will look to automation (i.e. need to pay fewer workers), outsource or hire illegal aliens.

On the "Socialist" capitalist side of the fence, we see ever more restrictive rules and regulations about patents and copyrights (which do not benefit the creative authors of the works), never ending lobbies for corporate subsidies (with Canada being a particularly grotesque example; look at Bombardier, or the "fly by night" companies which contract for Canadian Forces equipment and close when the contract ends [HLVW truck factory in Kingston, TCCCS radio production facility in Calgary and so on]). These companies extract tax dollars from their competitors, money which cannot be used to create new and better products and services. Even the vultures who extract corporate welfare are not getting a full benefit, they must hire expensive lobbyists and expend considerable time, effort and energy from the running of the primary business to do so.

Shareholders have the responsibility to ensure they are investing in a sound corporation, and they understand the risks they are exposing themselves to (remember the Bre-X shareholders who went from @ $240/share to $0?).

Sad to say, the best solution is to pull out, get rid of the regulatory barricades which people hide behind (for the longest time, it wasn't clear that Enron had actually breached any laws or regulations at all, due to the complexity of the legal and regulatory environment they were operating under), remove subsidies and the armed power of the State from business (when you can get sent to jail, the armed power of the State is in full view) and simply create a level playing field where people can enter mutually beneficial contracts knowing the power of the State exists to enforce the contracts, not enforce uneven contracts where the State acts as an agent of one party against another.

 

[a_majoor]

The Euston Manifesto now has its own web site:
http://eustonmanifesto.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=38

The blogger who is posting about the manifesto is Norman Geras, and his blog is here: http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2006/05/euston_launch.html

Once again, I will point out the irony of the Left using the ultimate free market mechanism of Blogging on the Internet to strengthen their arguments, since one of the fundamental beliefs of the left is to deny the efficiency of the free market! Nevertheless, I do wish them success, since debating any subject is always more productive and interesting if they are intelligent and have something to say. Looking at the ruins of the Left as it exists today is no cause for celebration, Hubris is always the vengeance of the gods. The behavior of the Liberal party from 1993 to the last election is a wonderful instruction to us all, unchallenged by any serious opposition they have fallen headlong into an orgy of spending, corruption and disdain for their constituents. We don't want to fall into that trap like the American Republicans are doing.

 

[couchcommander]

The free open nature of the internet is very much in the spirit of compassion and humanitarianism, not profit; that's what makes it absolutely beautiful and wonderous. If you do not choose to associate these values with the left, then fine, that is your choice, but these are values that I hold dear.

The internet about crossing barriers and allowing the free flow of information and ideas to all people regardless of who they are. It's not perfect, and in some places it has a long way to go, but their are many projects that are making significant headway in bringing it even to the poorest nations (anyone, as it stands now, can access the internet in Canada for absoltuely no charge).

Yes, you can harness this to make money, of course. But that is not what what drives the content of the internet. Take this site for example.

In the end and IMO, blogging in fact runs contrary to the ideals of the free market and especially capitalism. Blogging, as it is now, is free for use by anyone, and mostly free from even advertisements. It's a movement not about money but about connecting human beings and sharing ideas, for that purpose alone.

If you want to see what the corporate, capitalist world has in mind for this creature of humanity, read this:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/05/25/the.web.toll/index.html

If these corporations get their way, they will be slowing down access to these resources of free thought, despite the fact that we already pay for access on both ends (I pay over 50 dollars a month for my massive connection, but that won't matter, and the server side already pays for their bandwidth, which are then both distributed to the carriers in the form of leasing of their lines), but they don't think it's enough and see an opportunity to get more.

This, my friend, is the crux of the problem.

You will probably argue that they are using the regulatory nature of the government to accomplish this, but that is in fact exactly the opposite. Currently government regulation prevents this, if let to be free they will be extorting - and it is indeed extorting as communication is a fundamental human endevour not to mention the fact we already pay for these services - ludacris fees for what is in essence not really adding anything, but rather just putting off taking away.

They would simply be charging more from those whom have been sucessful because they are driven to ONE END ALONE, to make money.

I ask you this: If the board of directions of these corporations was made up of average users, you and I perhaps, do you think they would be doing this?

Would you, as a member of that board, permit them to inhibit your access to army.ca, blogs, news, academic institutions - whoever didn't agree to "protection" - because they simply wanted more money?

Remember, the corporation is profitable - there is MORE than enough money in it not only to maintain service but to expand and enhance it while at the same time dropping rates.

Would you vote to take away from yourself and those you care about, to give to those who really are not in need of anything more, for nothing in return? I think not, and THAT is why something needs to change.

On the otherhand, if you and I were shareholders, making large sums of money off this venture - more than enough to ensure you could pay for whatever fees they decided to charge - would you not vote for this? Would you not vote to make even more money? I sure would, and the shareholders of those corporations sure ARE.

That is the problem, Mr. Majoor.

Once again, please let me know if you have a better idea.

 

[couchcommander]

re: GM - I'm not going to defend trade unions - I happen to have no particular affinity for them - but I hardly think all of GM's problems can be blamed on them.

It's like the MPIAA blaming movie downloads for reduced attendance at theaters - of course it wouldn't be the fault of sky high ticket prices and crappy movies.

 

[a_majoor]

It's like the MPIAA blaming movie downloads for reduced attendance at theaters - of course it wouldn't be the fault of sky high ticket prices and crappy movies.

See young Skywalker, the POWER OF THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL is revealed out of your own mouth. As for your insistence that the Blogosphere isn't a marketplace, consider that you, I and everyone else looks for Blogs and sites with useful content. Blogs compete in the marketplace of ideas, and so far, the Glen Reynolds (Instapundit) of the world rule the blog universe, since their customers find the product (information) more useful than that of competitors like the Daily Kos. Why do you suppose the dream of every blogger in existence is to be referenced on Instapundit? In the marketplace of ideas, the currency is the information and how many people accept or use it. This would be true if bloggers could only communicate by sending out phamplets, writing samizdat or scratching coded messages on walls. What the Internet does is remove barriers of time and distance, you don't have to wait for Glen Reynolds to mail you, or get Instapundit slipped into your hand on a street corner, or decode messages on a wall, it is available the moment it is posted.

Like all other markets, information can be manipulated. Economics students suffered under the Keynesian model, the Phillips curve and IS/LM, even when it was completely obvious that these tools and metrics no longer had any connection to the real world (the "Stagflation" of the late 1970's which helped bring down the Carter Administration was impossible by definition in the Keynesian universe, yet existed none the less in the real world outside academia). The Keynesian model was discarded in favor of Classical economics and the Chicago school, since these ideas had observable correspondence to what was happening to the economy.

For subjects which have less direct correspondence with the real world, there are further levels of distortion available. The rejection of the classical cannon of Western Literature by the academic Left has no immediately recognizable consequences, but trying to decipher the thought process of modern recruits and officer candidates is a real challenge, to say the least. Lots of "alternatives" compete against the "dead white men", and although you know who's side I am on, it is not clear which cultural ideas will prevail.

Money is a useful metric, since it allows the exchange of information about dissimilar objects (your time is worth the hourly wage you choose to accept, and the box of Kraft Dinner you enjoyed is worth a certain fraction of your time. You can sell it to me if you believe it is worth more of my time, and take the money to buy a DVD, etc.), but it is not the ONLY metric. Your reputation, the information you use, the number of friends you have are all metrics that represent value as well.

WRT attempts to control the Internet (i.e. Internet tollways), this has already been tried with services like MSN and AOL, using the "walled garden" approach. While it is true there are plenty of sheep who don't mind only being able to access whatever Bill Gates or Yahoo! choose to show them, there are also enough people who will also pay for unfettered access. There are people who want to offer Internet access via wireless, Cable, phone, power lines, fiber optic cable or any other technical means you can imagine. The power of the market will subvert attempts to control the internet, with self interested share holders hoping to make big profits and you getting more and more choices. Remember, YOU are a free agent, and do not have to stand still and take what is being offered.