>
> Issodhos @aol.com wrote:
>
> >Interesting perspective.  Thanks.
>
> Glad you thought so. The heart of the question is competition, according to
> that article, written about a hundred years ago it would seem.
>
> The writer points out that capitalism, which is predicated on and justified
> by free competition, inevitably trends toward increased monopoly, simply by
> the development of increasingly sophisticated machinery of production.
>
> It is therefor reactionary to blindly protest about this, to demand free
> competition, because that is already impossible. For the most part.
>
> Free competition under capitalism is a wonderful thing to behold, but as
> the article points out, the vast majority of the population simply don't
> have the necessary tools and have little chance of acquiring them. The only
> free competition they can engage in is the race to sell their labour at the
> cheapest price to those who do own the tools.
>
> The software industry is interesting in that its evolution has been so
> staggeringly fast. In less than 20 years it has progressed from a stage
> where free competition was not only possible, but standard. Thousands of
> people, individual developers all across the globe, were developing a huge
> variety of software applications for a hungry market.
>
> But the computer industry could not expect that it would last forever. The
> same process applies as that described in the article for the wider means
> of production. As it becomes more sophisticated, as the tools needed to
> produce the tools become more powerful and harder to produce from scratch,
> free competition becomes ever less practical.
>
> It is all very well to insist that the player which has developed the most
> sophisticated tools necessary, simply give them to anyone who needs them to
> compete with him. But capitalists would argue, with some truth, that if the
> price of success is to be stripped of rewards of success, to facillitate
> continued competition, then it is a no-win game for them.
>
> In simple terms, capitalism tends toward monopoly. The ultimate goal of all
> capitalists is to totally dominate their competition, thus freeing
> themselves from its evils. It is futile to pander to the reactionary
> squeals of those who cannot compete against more efficient producers.
> Resistance to the inevitable trend of capitalism, in the name of preserving
> capitalism, is futile.
>
> And while we're on the Star Trek theme. ;-)
>
> Fans will be aware that this series is about a fictional future society
> with an economy based on "replicators", which can produce an abundance of
> material needs literally out of thin air. As well as transport people and
> produce via "transporters", by means of simply dematerialising them and
> "replicating" them in another place. Of course it is not hard to see that
> such a society must be a socialist one, since all the necessities of life
> and a great deal more besides are freely available to anyone with a
> replicator. Obviously a competitive economy become meaningless when the
> cost of production is virtually nill for all items.
>
> One cannot help but see the analogy between the Replicator economy of the
> fictional Star Trek series and the software industry. After all, I can
> "replicate" a software package as easily and quickly as Captain Kirk can
> beam down to the planet surface. There is only one kind of economic system
> that makes sense here and increased competition is not it.
>
> Competition makes sense when things are scarce, maybe even when there is a
> limited supply. But trying to create a competitive economy based on
> commodities which are potentially unlimited and can be produced for
> practically nothing is going to involve a great deal of tinkering designed
> to create artificial scarcity.
>
> But is the human race really going to maintain artificial scarcity, in an
> effort to preserve an outdated economic system based on scarcity? It seems
> insane, it is clearly immoral, sickeningly so.
>
> Beam me up Scotty.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
>