Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:06:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Scott <joseph.scott@owp.csus.edu> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why anti-trust law? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0108090854340.17197-100000@pebkac.owp.csus.edu> In-Reply-To: <20010809150404.C92172@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, j mckitrick wrote: # # How would you argue to someone that we *need* anti-trust legislation, and # that controlling monopoly power is not just punishing the successful? I've cut the references to MS and the article because if you really want to take on a question like "do we need anti-trust legislation" then only citing one instance/example/issue/court battle/etc isn't terribly useful. To really deal with this issue I'd recommend looking at it from an economics and cultural point of view. In general we like to consider this country a capitalist market. To my way of thinking this means that you are free to start a business develope it, etc as long as your aren't breaking laws and the like. If you reach a point where you have dominance (read: monopoly) in an area, then a couple of things kick in that have some do with economics and a lot to do with culture. The US was set up with the idea that one person or group having too much power is a bad idea (read: checks & balances in Fed. gov't). I believe that this feeling of one person/group having too much power extends to a lot of areas of our society. One of those areas is the condition of where a company has reached a monopoly in the market. For most people this strikes of the too much power case. So for the good of the whole (read: capitalist market), the company needs to be brought down a few notches (or more). In general I think that I tend to agree. (Not all monopolies are bad, but that's another story.) I think if this person really wants to know if anti-trust should still be around, then he should sit through a few more university economics classes and bring up the issues with people who study this kind think from a broader scope (read: not picking on one instance and basing all decisions off of it) -Joseph To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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