Re: "Is Nader right?"

["John N. Bryan" <jnelson@bga.com>]

  >Paul Ferzoco (by way of John N Bryan) wrote:
  >> It's their overwhelming plan to FORCE us to use their products that
  >> piss's me off. Those of us who've been in the industry for 30+ years are
  >
  >Hmmm, could someone elaborate on the use of 'force' by MS to use their
  >products?
  
  "FORCE" may have been too strong, too broad a word.  However, if the
  only choice available is the same company that caused there to be only
  one choice, then perhaps there is an indirect forcing.
  
  
  >
  >I still think there is time for public market forces to foster a
  >groundswell of support for
  >a competitive product without having to resort to draconian govt. enforced
  >anti-capitalist
  >measures, like the socialist 'anti dog-eat-dog' bill supported by
  >competitors to a trans-
  >continental railroad in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
  
  If there are allowed to be competitive products.  If the environment
  is such that competitive companies and products are, through no fault
  of their own, prevented from being made available to the consumer to
  choose, then essentially there are no competitive products. It does
  me no good for there to be a competitive product if I never have
  the opportunity to choose it. Generally speaking.
  
  I trust you are not implying that the DOJ, by their recent actions
  with respect to Microsoft's licensing practices as they relate to
  the 1994/5 consent decree, are taking draconian measures. To examine
  things of this nature is hardly unreasonably harsh, and would seem
  to be part of the normal part of their role. In as much as their
  actions are defined by law, etc., I don't think they are draconian.
  
  So far as "enforced anti-capitalist measures" are concerned, yes,
  they are in effect anti-capitalist.  Like other dynamic forces,
  capitalism can be directed and at times curbed to prevent it
  going out of control.  I don't think the DOJ has reacted none too
  capriciously in this case.  Quite the contrary, I think they have
  by in large been too conservative where Microsoft's business
  practices are concerned.  I am reminded of a nuclear power plant.
  You have a sustained nuclear fission reaction going, a very poerful
  force, and it is kept from going out of control by certain systems,
  (coolant, control rods, etc.).  Without the existence of some
  admittedly anti-capitalist bounds, it might be possible to have
  a capitalistic Chernobyl on our hands.  The damage from such
  an end is far worse than the "damage" to business, the economy,
  and Capitalism caused by the the anti-capitalist measures.
  
  John B
  
  
  --
  "You are not free because you CAN choose, only if you DO choose."
  "Everything you are is the decisions you make. If you allow circumstances
  to make them for you, then what you are becomes very easy to estimate."
  --