Re: OT Monopolies

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:04:10 GMT, Will Sill <will@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I see where Al Balmer <albalmer@xxxxxxx> contributed:


Will:
. . . If unethical or illegal
practice used to perpetuate a harmful monopoly are overlooked by
Government (as in the case of today's immigration debacle) then it is
Government that's aiding and abetting the existence of a harmful
monopoly. So we are back to the original proposition: a harmful
monopoly cannot long exist without some form of Government assistance.


AB:
That assistance, in this instance, being non-action, not the use of
force.

For me, the question that arose here is "should the government
intervene to control the power of monopolies?" I think the answer is
"sometimes." The unfettered free market can, under some circumstances,
become decidedly unfree.

Come on, Al, you're smarter than that. Deliberate failure to enforce
just laws against "unethical and illegal" conduct IS a form of
"action" - being malfeasance, violation of oath, etc. You're playing
word games by suggesting that failure to enforce laws (specifically
when doing so perpetuates illegal practices) doesn't constitute gummit
assistance of harmful monopolistic practices.

I'm not playing a word game, just trying to get the language precise
enough to eliminate misunderstanding. I'm just reiterating what was
established, that you and I both consider that inaction in such
circumstances is a bad thing. I find it difficult to consider inaction
as a "use of force", which was your terminology.

Incidentally, we don't need to reference laws, just or unjust. We can
consider the idea of government interfering in free enterprise
abstractly, without reference to any particular set of laws. I should
not have bundled ethics and illegality above, since they're two
separate issues. For example, the monopolistic practices that
Microsoft was convicted of are essentially ethical questions, illegal
only because we have chosen to pass laws about them. The laws they
broke were laws which regulate only business, not human behavior. Some
people think the government has no business regulating business
practices in such cases. After all, MS wasn't hiring hit men to kill
competitors, or having uncooperative retailers beat up by thugs. They
were just asserting their economic power. Free enterprise. Capitalism.

I happen to find such questions both interesting and important.
Probably this is not the right forum for interesting and important
questions <g>.

You may not intend it, but you are proposing that it is OK for the
police to permit illegal behavior by their friends, selectively
enforcing laws against those they don't like. IMO that is as much
"assistance" as granting land to the 'robber barons'.

Nonsense. You're too smart to be playing *that* kind of game. If you
seriously think I am proposing any such thing, intentionally or not,
you need to read more literally and use less imagination. In fact, I
wasn't "proposing" anything.


--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ
.

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