The Political Thread

[Modern Panther]

Acme Co can only keep its monopoly as long as it deserves to.

Acme Co keeps its monopoly for as long as it has the most money.  Acting immorally reduces overheads, producing a cheaper product and raising income.  Acme Co loses its advantage only if the consumer is willing to make moral choices to their own financial detriment. 

Consumers tend not to do that.

Badly paid consumers, with no workers rights, no consumer rights, no state funding education system, no state funded health system, whose only information about the world comes to them through communication channels owned by Acme Co and companies like it, would do it even less.

[Jim_Campbell]

You don't prevent large companies from trying to establish monopolies, as I said earlier, if they can do it and the public allows it then have at it. Why not?

How would the public stop it? Let's say Google raises the capital to buy Microsoft and Apple. They now control all the major desktop and mobile operating systems in the world. They then simply close MS and Apple and insist that all mobile devices will run Android, and all desktops will run some shiny new Chrome-style OS they've been working on. Where is the public interest represented in this?

[Modern Panther]

I have absolutely no problem with a legislative or regulatory body applying legislation and regulation to companies.

Wouldn't this legislation require some sort of...I don't know...government?

[The Legendary Shark]

The Bank of England don't create money from nothing.

Yes they do, it's called Fractional Reserve Lending. The US dollar used to be the world's reserve currency after the Second World War. The US promised to honour every dollar it printed, exchanging them for gold (which exchanges almost always never happened, because cash is easier to deal with than metal). In about 1971, it became apparent that the US had printed so many dollars that there was nowhere near enough gold to cover all the dollars. This could have caused a bank-run on an entire country, utterly bankrupting the United States.

So, in about 1971 (if memory serves) the US decided to untether the dollar from gold, essentially making it backed by nothing. This meant they could redouble their dollar printing and had the knock-on effect of untethering other global currencies from gold. With this tie cut, the printing of money exploded and inflation (which is not a measure of prices rising but of the value of money declining) took off. It's become a vicious circle - the more money gets printed, the less it's worth, so more gets printed to try and keep up with the falling value. It's like trying to keep a leaky rubber raft inflated with a hand pump while the holes get bigger and bigger and you have to pump harder and harder. Eventually, bits of the raft start to sink (banks going under), and not too long after that the whole damn thing goes down.

But WHY is Murdoch close to Governments - because he knows they potentially stand in his way!  You seem to be suggesting removing any weak and potentially corruptible barriers and replacing them with a chalk mark will improve matters.

Of course they potentially stand in his way, as they potentially stand in everyone's way. His choices are simple: 1) Ignore them and try to build his empire without them - if the government and its mates don't get a share, he won't get far. 2) He can fight the government - but it'll crush him. 3) Suck up and hide behind its power.

If you have one town planner, say, in a large town, that one person is easy to corrupt or threaten so a big company can build a car park on a public garden. Take that one person away and return the power to the people and suddenly that company might have a whole town full of people against them - or for them, if they decide they need a car park more than a garden. Or in partnership with them, if there's a better site.

How would the public stop it? Let's say Google raises the capital to buy Microsoft and Apple. They now control all the major desktop and mobile operating systems in the world. They then simply close MS and Apple and insist that all mobile devices will run Android, and all desktops will run some shiny new Chrome-style OS they've been working on. Where is the public interest represented in this?

Linux. Open source software. Networked mobile 'phones (basically turning every 'phone and laptop into an internet hub, making the internet truly uncontrollable). I for one would not buy a Google system in this scenario, many wouldn't and many would. With that anti-Google gap in the market, other companies - new and old - would offer services they know people want. Google might remain big, and many people might like how it works, but there will still be choice. And if Google oversteps, well, the public can soon fall out of love with things. MySpace.

With government protectionism, internet "laws" would be passed, at the request of Google (with sweeteners, of course), to protect and consolidate its grip. Without government, it's as open to competition as surely as an open wound is open to infection.

I have absolutely no problem with a legislative or regulatory body applying legislation and regulation to companies.

Wouldn't this legislation require some sort of...I don't know...government?

Nope, just human minds. Courts. Public opinion. Trade associations. That kind of thing. But yes, government is one option but, as I thought I said, a type of government with power over non-human entities only.

Stop it now - I need to go to bed - an' bain't no durn gubment gonna stop me! 

[Jim_Campbell]

Linux. Open source software. Networked mobile 'phones (basically turning every 'phone and laptop into an internet hub, making the internet truly uncontrollable).

Cloud cuckoo land. A tiny, tiny fraction of people would be able to do this. The vast majority either wouldn't have the technical skill, the time or the inclination to go down such a route and would just have to bend over and take it.

[Steven Denton]

Money not being backed by gold does not mean it's created out of nothing. Golds value was not based on the value of gold, but on the value of the country's that pinned their currency to gold. Gold was slow to react to expanding economys, making capital slow to access. Unpinning money from gold just removed the artifice of paper money representing gold coins. Paper money is now giving way to digital.

[Modern Panther]

Courts

Where a single person, or small group of people, hold authority over others.

Which is, of course, morally wrong and completely impossible, since
legislative law and regulations come from the minds of human beings, not some mysterious, invisible, all-powerful force called "government." Legislative law applies with the consent of the governed ...unless the governed are shareholders, or the owner of a company, in which case this Gordian knot will suddenly fall away because...

...well, because doing otherwise would be damaging to society, which means this contradiction is permitted and "authority" is suddenly created from nothing, despite it only existing through transit before, in order for the system to continue to exist.

And that's ignoring the writing of legislation in an ever changing world, appointing a judiciary, ensuring they have authority and practical system to enforce rules, arranging inspections, having an adequate system of punishment for those who fail to follow the rules, informing consumers, funding the whole shebang...There's a reason why so many billionaires are libertarians, and its not the love of their fellow man.

[sheridan]

The Grocer found Cadbury's best-selling seasonal lines were £10m lower in 2015, cutting the confectioner's market share from 42% to 40%, so that's an example of market forces right there - as you pointed out, they lost dissatisfied customers and their £10M loss was the gain of some other company. That's how the market works.

Just because their lines were £10m lower, doesn't mean all that money was spent elsewhere.  People may have lost their jobs, not had a pay rise while having to pay more rent or just saved it.  Maybe they cut down on chocolate and started a gym membership?

[sheridan]

There's no way any company can build a protected monopoly without government shielding. I can see nothing wrong with an unprotected, meritorious, naturally occurring monopoly.

The East India Company?

[The Legendary Shark]

Linux. Open source software. Networked mobile 'phones (basically turning every 'phone and laptop into an internet hub, making the internet truly uncontrollable).

Cloud cuckoo land. A tiny, tiny fraction of people would be able to do this. The vast majority either wouldn't have the technical skill, the time or the inclination to go down such a route and would just have to bend over and take it.

Rubbish. Linux Mint and Ubuntu, for example, are just as easy to use as MS Windows -in some aspects, even easier. They don't require anti-virus software, either. If you doubt this, download an installation file for Linux Mint and install it on an old laptop, if you have one. If not, burn the downloaded file to a disc or thumb drive and run it from there. LibreOffice, the GIMP and Inkscape (as just three examples) are just as easy to use as MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. And, with each new iteration, these programs get easier and easier to use. Sure, there's a learning curve but then the same is true of all software. To believe people are too dim to learn how to use these programs does not reflect reality. People of all kinds have learned to use Windows, even if they don't understand it in any great depth, and Linux and open source software are no different in this regard. I do agree, though, that many people don't have the inclination to change at present and would rather stick with what they're used to than try something new.

Money not being backed by gold does not mean it's created out of nothing. Golds value was not based on the value of gold, but on the value of the country's that pinned their currency to gold. Gold was slow to react to expanding economys, making capital slow to access. Unpinning money from gold just removed the artifice of paper money representing gold coins. Paper money is now giving way to digital.

Gold's value, indeed the value of everything, is based largely on faith. Gold is a rare metal, doesn't corrode and is also useful in many technologies, making it an ideal store of value. It is, however, bulky and problematic to keep safe. This is why bank notes were invented. A bank note was originally a certificate issued by a bank to represent the gold and/or silver people stored in the bank's vaults for safety. At some point, the goldsmiths (who first devised this system because their vaults were very secure) realised that people who deposited gold with them rarely came to remove their gold from the vaults, preferring to trade in bank notes which were "as good as gold." They began creating bank notes without receiving any gold to base them on and lending them out at interest. What a brilliant scam! When the public began to realise what was happening, the bankers justified this fraud by coining the term "fractional reserve banking," which simply means banks gave themselves the right to lend out more bank notes than they had gold to back them up. This was the beginning of inflation and a debt-based monetary system. Without this fraudulent system, there would be no such thing as bank runs. (A bank run occurs when people, for whatever reason, decide to redeem their notes for gold in larger than ecxpected numbers. Let's say Farmer Giles has worked all his life and amassed a modest amount of gold with which to fund his retirement and deposited it in a bank. Then a rumour starts that the farmer's bank is in trouble and everyone rushes to get their gold - of course, in that situation it's first come, first served - and the first to come are those people (other bankers and the "elites," usually) in the know. They get theirs but the poor farmer has lost everything he's worked for over the years. With fractional reserve banking such monstrous abuses are made increasingly likely. It still happens today, from time to time, with people's hard-earned savings diminished or even eradicated at a stroke.) It's not the gold or the bank notes that's the problem, it's how and by whom the system is run.

Now, none of this means very much because, as you say, paper money is just an artifice. It's worth what people believe it's worth, which is why banks work so hard to project an image of competence, trustworthiness, solidity and stability. Gold is a real, tangible thing that has to be located, dug up and refined - its existence cannot be simply wished or magicked into reality by writing in a ledger. This is the core of the problem - not what we use as a money but how it is created and by whom. At present, all money in the world is created by a core cartel of private bankers who make a profit from this monopoly and decide who can have some and who can't - they even decide how much money entire countries can have, making a mockery of the governments people love and trust so much. Most people labour under the illusion that central banks, such as the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve, are part of the government and therefore owned by the people but this is not so. The people might own the building, and be responsible for funding its upkeep, but everything inside is owned by private shareholders - of which you are not one. Even governments must "borrow" from the central bank - and you get to pay it all back. In this way, profits are privatised whilst losses are covered by the general public. This is the imbalance which has done so much damage through the centuries and continues to this day.

In this modern age, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are an important development. The amount of bitcoins available is determined by a mathematical formula, meaning they cannot be created at a whim and the profits resulting from that creation snaffled up by a handful of entities or individuals - the profits of Bitcoin creation are evenly distributed throughout the system, so every Bitcoin user benefits in a small way and those benefits are not consolodated into the hands of a few. Bitcoin also shows that money does not have to be tethered to gold, silver, copper or any other metal. Bitcoin has value because people have faith in the currency - and that's the only thing ultimately backing any currency.

The solution to the world's debt problem is easy - make money creation a public service. The fact that governments have shied away from taking control of money creation is one of the main reasons why I believe they are parasitic, toxic, immoral and invalid. A true state-owned central bank could create money "at cost," as it were, and drastically decrease the need for high interest rates, the majority of taxes and rampant debt. And yes, you're right, it doesn't ultimately matter what the value of money is based on, you can base it on gold, silver, mathematical equations or even the number of birds in that tree over there - the fundamental test of a currency's worth boils down to just two questions - do I have faith in it and can I pay my taxes with it? Answer "yes" to both of those questions and, hey-presto, you've got a national or even international currency. The problem isn't with money itself, in whatever forms it takes,(though one day, in the not too distant future (I hope), humanity will grow up and realise that we don't need money at all) but with those few who monopolise its creation to the general detriment of everyone and everything else.

Courts

Where a single person, or small group of people, hold authority over others.

Which is, of course, morally wrong and completely impossible, since legislative law and regulations come from the minds of human beings, not some mysterious, invisible, all-powerful force called "government." Legislative law applies with the consent of the governed ...unless the governed are shareholders, or the owner of a company, in which case this Gordian knot will suddenly fall away because...

...well, because doing otherwise would be damaging to society, which means this contradiction is permitted and "authority" is suddenly created from nothing, despite it only existing through transit before, in order for the system to continue to exist.

And that's ignoring the writing of legislation in an ever changing world, appointing a judiciary, ensuring they have authority and practical system to enforce rules, arranging inspections, having an adequate system of punishment for those who fail to follow the rules, informing consumers, funding the whole shebang...There's a reason why so many billionaires are libertarians, and its not the love of their fellow man.

Where a single person, or small group of people, hold authority over others hear complaints and decide whether one party, or the other, or neither, or both, have caused loss, harm or damage. We each and every one of us hold the authority to refuse to accept that which is unlawful and to defend ourselves, our families, our neighbours, our communities, against unlawful acts. The jury in a court hold only that authority and no more. I've written about the libertarian court and prison system before so I won't go into it again here except to say that a legal system does not require government to operate. Indeed, seperating the courts and police from government, making them independent of undue political influence and not reliant on state funding, would make them a lot more balanced. I've been in a magistrates' court and know first-hand how biased towards the authorities they are. Courts under the control, either wholly or partially, of governments simply cannot be unbiased.

Legislation can still be written without an authoritarian government. Much of it will come from ongoing case-law. The legislation already in existence need not be abandoned and will prove useful in informing ongoing cases - it's just that it won't be enforced as The Law, which tends to put parking fines in the same arena as murder. Juries, whilst considering the actions of lawbreakers, will be perfectly free to take into account existing legislation and apply it where they judge it to be fair and/or relevant and discard or amend it if it's not.

There's a reason why so many billionaires are libertarians (so you claim), and its not the love of their fellow man. It's because they misunderstand the nature of libertarianism, mistaking anarchy for chaos as, it seems, do you.

The Grocer found Cadbury's best-selling seasonal lines were £10m lower in 2015, cutting the confectioner's market share from 42% to 40%, so that's an example of market forces right there - as you pointed out, they lost dissatisfied customers and their £10M loss was the gain of some other company. That's how the market works.

Just because their lines were £10m lower, doesn't mean all that money was spent elsewhere.  People may have lost their jobs, not had a pay rise while having to pay more rent or just saved it.  Maybe they cut down on chocolate and started a gym membership?

Fair enough.

There's no way any company can build a protected monopoly without government shielding. I can see nothing wrong with an unprotected, meritorious, naturally occurring monopoly.

The East India Company?

The same East India Company that was backed by the British Crown, which passed laws to imprison and seize the assets of anybody who dared compete with it? The same East India Company which basically invaded other countries, raped their resources and subjugated their people with the tacit approval of the British Crown, who treated them as commercial heroes and not criminals? The same East India Company that was given permission to embark on its adventures by the British Crown? The same East India Company that merged with the English Company Trading to the East Indies and the British state in 1708 by a tripartite indenture and lent the Treasury £3,200,000 in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years? The same East India Company that got caught smuggling opium into China and persuaded the British government to send warships to fight the first opium war?

Unless you're talking about another East India Company, your example is the perfect illustration of the extremes a company can reach with government shielding and a protected monopoly.

[Jim_Campbell]

To believe people are too dim to learn how to use these programs does not reflect reality.

I didn't say that. In my Google/Android/Chrome example, people are offered an easy choice of accepting a monopolist's imposed option, or choice that is demonstrably more technically difficult and/or more work. The lack of widespread adoption of Linux at the consumer level demonstrates its basic unattractiveness to the man/woman in the street. Doesn't matter if that's a result of technical inability, ignorance of the options, or lack of time/inclination to pursue it, the result is the same.

Amusing that you should mention Photoshop and Illustrator. For a significant subsection of their user base, none of those free/open source alternatives are fit for purpose. Adobe has those people (including me) over a barrel.

Want to see an unfettered monopolistic instinct in action? Adobe bought up Aldus, then Macromedia, mopping all their significant competitors barring Quark Xpress. Then they used the sales clout of Photoshop to leverage InDesign into the DTP field — the first two iterations of the CS suite cost the same for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign as a single license for Quark.

As soon as Quark was effectively dead, the Creative Suite price went up. Then, a few years later, they hit on the Creative Cloud wheeze, which goes like this: Curse those pesky customers for not instantly upgrading every time we put out a new version. Wouldn't it be better if we changed to a subscription model that forces every customer wanting more than one application to pay what wasthe old upgrade price for ALL the applications, each year, every year in perpetuity if they want to open their own files?

As much as I like Affinity's Illustrator and Photoshop competitors, I have significant clients who insist on getting live AI documents. So far, I've been voting with my wallet and not moving to CC, but at some point my copy of CS6 will stop working and I will have literally no option other than to upgrade to the vastly more expensive Creative Cloud, or take a significant financial hit.

[The Legendary Shark]

As I said, there's nothing wrong with trying to build a monopoly through the buying and selling of other companies.

Of course, I'm no expert on Illustrator and Photoshop as you and your contacts are and have used them as an amateur only. The programs I mentioned are more than adequate for me and I suspect that some (but by no means all) bias against them stems from brand snobbery or loyalty - like people who refuse to shop in Aldi for whatever reason.

These programs do continue to improve, however, and if Adobe continue on the route you describe then Open Source options will steadily begin to encroach on their market share. At which point, Adobe will have to reassess their business model. Some Adobe users might like the way their system works, enjoying paying for constant upgrades and having old software stop working so they don't get stuck in a rut or suddenly find themselves with obsolete software. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what they want and what they can afford.

If you had a choice, though, between paying through the nose for the most up to date Adobe software or using an Open Source alternative which is the equivalent, say, of last year's (or even the year before's) Adobe software, and which will update constantly anyway, for free - which would you choose? (This is not meant as a challenge, I'm just interested in the professional's view.)

I don't know what a "live AI document" is - I presume it's an Adobe Illustrator document that can be put online and worked on by several different people from several different computers at once - but if there was a decant OS alternative, would you try it out?

I know that Inkscape can open and export AI documents but I'm not certain these are the same thing as live AI documents.

One advantage of OS programs like Inkscape and the GIMP is that it removes the financial bar to getting started, at least. One can begin with the free stuff (and donate, if you want) and then move to Adobe if and when the money starts coming in sufficient quantities to justify the expense.

I would not say that Linux/Open Source programs are more technically difficult, although in the past this was undoubtedly true (I once ruined a hard drive trying to get Linux Red Hat to work in the late 90s), just different. The truth is that people generally don't like change, they stick with what they know until something forces or inspires them to change. The marketing bods at companies like Adobe know this and so, hopefully, impose change gradually - like boiling frogs - because they know if they go too far too fast people like you and your clients will find alternatives.

[Professor Bear]

As much as I like Affinity's Illustrator and Photoshop competitors, I have significant clients who insist on getting live AI documents. So far, I've been voting with my wallet and not moving to CC, but at some point my copy of CS6 will stop working and I will have literally no option other than to upgrade to the vastly more expensive Creative Cloud, or take a significant financial hit.

This, to me, just sounds like a cottage industry waiting to happen, where people with CC subscriptions take a fee in return for converting files into the AI format.

[IndigoPrime]

The programs I mentioned are more than adequate for me and I suspect that some (but by no means all) bias against them stems from brand snobbery or loyalty

It's nothing to do with that. It's down to approachability, accessibility, stability and features.

These programs do continue to improve, however, and if Adobe continue on the route you describe then Open Source options will steadily begin to encroach on their market share.

Only that is never going to happen. The only time I can recall there being significant impact on Adobe's pro-level software is when a product lagged for a very long time (Dreamweaver), thereby essentially making itself redundant. Photoshop and Illustrator, however, remain at the forefront of their respective fields, and even though there are impressive competitors, they are simply not going to cut it for a significant portion of the market.

If you had a choice, though, between paying through the nose for the most up to date Adobe software or using an Open Source alternative which is the equivalent, say, of last year's (or even the year before's) Adobe software, and which will update constantly anyway, for free - which would you choose? (This is not meant as a challenge, I'm just interested in the professional's view.)

This isn't an option, because the open source alternative isn't even equivalent to Adobe's software a decade ago, in many cases. But with open source, you are also reliant on altruism and goodwill. Perhaps the stuff will be regularly updated, or perhaps it won't. Who knows?

(I'm not, incidentally, against open source, but there are limitations to that model, and they slam nastily into a wall whenever you approach pro levels. The same's broadly true of free/freemium software on mobile.)

[Jim_Campbell]

This, to me, just sounds like a cottage industry waiting to happen, where people with CC subscriptions take a fee in return for converting files into the AI format.

Can't do it. Designer makes a decent fist of importing AI files, but there's no workable path from Designer back into AI — AI, I suspect intentionally, gubs third-party EPS and PDF files so that they're not editable in any useable fashion.