The three main goals of libertarianism

[asterism]

I'll help him out...

Microsoft giving away web browsers to kill browser competition. Microsoft giving away utilities, such as anti-virus software, to kill utilities companies. Corporations, such as Microsoft, IBM, GE, etc. overpaying to buy up competing corporations to remove competitive market pressure from their larger suites of more expensive products.

Well, microsoft web browser give outs didn't work at all. Thats a fairly benign example of "runnign at a loss for however long it takes to kill competition". They still have plenty of comeptition in browsers. I prefer google chrome. Which is also free. Or firefox, another free browser.

Same applies for utilities such as antivirus. There are tons of free and paid anti-virus protection and Microsoft isnt winning any competitors out by doing this.

Buying competing corps is absolutely not an example of killing the competition. No one is forcing the other corp. to sell out to the highest bidder. Thats a voluntary contract, it's not killing them out by lowering costs for as long as it takes running at a loss.

I see your perspective. But oddly your perspective appears to switch back and forth as needed to support your argument.

For example, in the case of Netscape, you call forever killing the sales of browsers benign because as the consumer you get it for free. But you fail to recognize the damage caused to Microsoft's competitors who were run out of business. Benign? Microsoft using their monopoly on OSes to selling a new version of an OS that includes a web browser to compete with a new technology is benign? Here you appear to make the argument from the POV of the consumer, certainly not the POV of the company that created the market for web browsing that Microsoft ran out of business with their OS monopoly.

As per utilities, you may not be aware of just how many companies Microsoft ran out of business by utilizing their monopoly on OSes to include their competitor's product in the OS to sell updated versions of the OS.

>> Buying competing corps is absolutely not an example of killing the competition.
Now you appear to switch from the perspective of the consumer and the competition to the perspective of the company that sold out. Again, in this case you are ignoring the perspective of the competitors that remain. Again, you are ignoring the monopolies that the larger corporations have over the sales of product. If a large company is competing with 9 other companies for a future market where the large company starts out with 10% share and buys out the top 3 competitors who previously held say 80 share, the bottom seven companies are left fighting for scraps of the 10% remaining share as the consumer looses all choice in the purchase. As the consumer moves to the new market they are left with little choice but to give their money to the monopoly. If the smaller companies do not sell the larger company will just buy out the two other companies and all of the smaller ones and still end up with a monopoly on the future market.

Netscape died because there isn't a viable business model in giving away browsers. It's a means to provide a platform for other products and services. Microsoft never had a monopoly either.

 

[asterism]

Sorry, misread your post. Flatscreen technology was invented in the USA but Japanese manufacturers undercut us for long enough to drive US companies out of business. Last I heard, there were no US TV manufacturers left.

Then there's Monsanto. They're creating whole new ecological systems with a combination of GMO's and herbicides. It's not inconceivable that they'll have a monopoly on the food supply at some point.

I was starting to think that I had imagined putting this in a post but nope, there it is. And this is exactly what happened in the 80's. They sold at a loss until there was no competition left.

OMG!! You mean the Japanese were more competitive in making things like flat screen TVs so they out performed the competition!!??? CALL THE FUCKIN' PRESS!

That's how competition works, Joe.

Holy ******* shit, you cannot possibly be as goddamned stupid as you come across.

Note to people who want Libertarianism to take hold:

I was at one time enough of a libertarian to stiffle my gag reflex for long enough to register as a repulican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Didn't seem to help. It's not that Paul's platform had no holes in it but I thought that a man of integrity pulling in the opposite direction of where we were headed seemed like a good thing at the time.

Since then, I've met what appears to be the Libertarian mainstream both in person and on web sites such as this. The level of pure fantasy and willful ignorance to the real threats that large entities such as multinational corporations pose makes it clear that I'm not really a Libertarian.

If you want to see your movement progress beyond a footnote in history, you should fix that.

Kooks drove you away from the libertarians but now you support Obama.

 

[JoeNormal]

Your three examples of corporate take over in leu of a government to "stop" it, were all addressed based on the merit of the examples.

Monsanto - govt. granted monopoly in patents of life form - govt. direct involvement in soldifiying their gains

That's not the point of concern here. Their GMO seeds pollenate in adjacent farms and ruin the genes of those crops. In some cases, the seeds will not sprout. Then there is the issue of Round Up. It was designed to work with the GMO seeds and reaks havok with other crops. Also, it's now producing super weeds that are extra hardy and is causing problems there.

The japanese - I pointed out that it was competition, only to have RKMBrown come in adn even further solidy it as a two-fold failure. The govt., our govt. granted a failing nations govt. money to press into the sector - govt. involvement.

So on the one hand, had they legitimately gained competitive edge, that's not along the lines of running at a lose for however long it takes to kill competition. On the other hand, they were granted money from our govt. to their govt. in order to press the industry along further to make the goods cheaper - govt. involvement.

Had they not had that "borrowed" money from govt., Japan wouldn't have had the means to press the sector in that fashion. Ever heard of the japanese miracle or the lost decade?


So, if you'd like, I'll let you go ahead and show how corporations will take over via example in leu of government interference.

I assume you believe that without the government funded subsidy, they would not have been able to decimate the competition. I disagree. Big corporations are cash cows (it's estimated that US corporations are holding around $1.8 trillion offshore) and they could withstand a war of this kind without much trouble.

Someone brought up Microsoft which might even be a better example of this tactic.

 

[JoeNormal]

OMG!! You mean the Japanese were more competitive in making things like flat screen TVs so they out performed the competition!!??? CALL THE FUCKIN' PRESS!

That's how competition works, Joe.

Holy ******* shit, you cannot possibly be as goddamned stupid as you come across.

Note to people who want Libertarianism to take hold:

I was at one time enough of a libertarian to stiffle my gag reflex for long enough to register as a repulican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Didn't seem to help. It's not that Paul's platform had no holes in it but I thought that a man of integrity pulling in the opposite direction of where we were headed seemed like a good thing at the time.

Since then, I've met what appears to be the Libertarian mainstream both in person and on web sites such as this. The level of pure fantasy and willful ignorance to the real threats that large entities such as multinational corporations pose makes it clear that I'm not really a Libertarian.

If you want to see your movement progress beyond a footnote in history, you should fix that.

Kooks drove you away from the libertarians but now you support Obama.

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

 

[RKMBrown]

Provide an example where this is "pretty much what they do".

I'll help him out...

Microsoft giving away web browsers to kill browser competition. Microsoft giving away utilities, such as anti-virus software, to kill utilities companies. Corporations, such as Microsoft, IBM, GE, etc. overpaying to buy up competing corporations to remove competitive market pressure from their larger suites of more expensive products.

Funny thing about that whole issue, was that supposedly one day Microsoft was going to force us to use their browser if they were allowed to pre-install it on a desktop. How'd that work out?

Microsoft didn't kill Netscape. Microsoft actually saved their greatest rival, Apple.

Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?

>>> How'd that work out?
It killed the over the counter market for browsers, replacing it with a for free open source browser market.

>>> Microsoft didn't kill Netscape.
Yes it did. Here's a primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corporation

>> Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?
Norton.

>>> Microsoft saved apple...
ROFL that's a joke. Apple saved apple by creating great consumer products.

 

[asterism]

IOW you are a constitutional conservative like the founders. Many libertarians are with you. However, as with all other parties no two people think alike. Many folks in a party are radicals. Libertarian radicals appear to like to enrage everyone who does not rage with them against all government intervention. These libertarians do not agree with the libertarians that formed this country. They are not constitutional conservatives, they are what some would call anarchists who are against just about everything we use governments for. Just as authoritarian runs the gamut of socialism to conservatism, so too libertarian runs the gamut of anarchy to constitutional liberty prescribed by our original Constitution.

I was once a constitutionalist. What i found out is that no matter how much we want to keep the State in check, they will always find ways to molest the constitution for their purposes of power and control. There is no magic bullet or feiry dust that will keep the State rent seekers from overstepping their bounds and doing it regularly. When you couple this together with the reality that representational government is a myth, you have to walk a few extra steps down the path of anarchy. I'm what many would call Rothbardian. I would happily accept constitutional government in the USA. However, in reality, this is where that constitution has led us to, so i must continue quesitoning its validity in the realms of the State. And that's where I'm far more an advocate of a voluntaryist society or anarcho-capitalist.

Libertarianims holds many of the same principles as both anarcho-capitalists and voluntaryists. The reality is, none of these forms of peaceful self governance will ever happen. The State is nothing better than when Kings ruled by divine right. it's simply morphed to be more palatable to the everyday citizen through the theater of the ballot box and respresentation. Which far more often than not, doesn't even represent 50% of the citizens, let alone 100%.

So, I'm libertarian in that i agree with the main principles of the constitution. But the reality of where it has taken us, leaves me no choice but to seriously quesiton its validity in keeping the "necessary evil" of governmetn in check.

IMO we should be a republic. Thus IMO all of our current issues go back to one guiding principle that was broken, and that was the 14th that purposefully ended the republic by over-ridding the the 10th amendment with the due-process clause. The republic ended with the forced signing of that clause at the point of the gun.

How would slavery and women's suffrage be doing today if the US was a Republic in the vein of the founders?

 

[bripat9643]

Well, in that case it might be more like the way the soviet union went. Which is still rather authoritarian, but they learned about adopting free market principles at least in degree. It will only be when the State has completely exhausted all of the wealth and promises it makes that people will begin to wake up to the reality of Statism. Far too late, sure. Thats how we humans always seem to roll.

A lot of people in the Soviet Union didn't wake up to it until they found themselves digging for gold in a Siberian concentration camp.

I really don't want to go down that road.

 

[bripat9643]

How would slavery and women's suffrage be doing today if the US was a Republic in the vein of the founders?

Slavery would have ended like it did in every other country: without 800,000 people being killed in one of the most savage wars in history.

 

[bripat9643]

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

In other words, you support Obama.

 

[JoeNormal]

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

In other words, you support Obama.

Oh how I love that in-depth, conservatard black-and-white thinking.

 

[bripat9643]

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

In other words, you support Obama.

Oh how I love that in-depth, conservatard black-and-white thinking.

How are you different from any Obama worshiping drone in this forum

 

[JoeNormal]

In other words, you support Obama.

Oh how I love that in-depth, conservatard black-and-white thinking.

How are you different from any Obama worshiping drone in this forum

Which do you prefer, axe muderers or baby rapists?

I guess you must support that one then.

 

[asterism]

I'll help him out...

Microsoft giving away web browsers to kill browser competition. Microsoft giving away utilities, such as anti-virus software, to kill utilities companies. Corporations, such as Microsoft, IBM, GE, etc. overpaying to buy up competing corporations to remove competitive market pressure from their larger suites of more expensive products.

Funny thing about that whole issue, was that supposedly one day Microsoft was going to force us to use their browser if they were allowed to pre-install it on a desktop. How'd that work out?

Microsoft didn't kill Netscape. Microsoft actually saved their greatest rival, Apple.

Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?

>>> How'd that work out?
It killed the over the counter market for browsers, replacing it with a for free open source browser market.

Microsoft killed a market that didn't exist? Virtually nobody paid for browsers. Netscape GAVE THEIRS AWAY TOO!

>>> Microsoft didn't kill Netscape.
Yes it did. Here's a primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corporation

No it didn't. Netscape didn't have a product to sell.

>> Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?
Norton.

Norton is alive and well it was purchased by Symantec.

>>> Microsoft saved apple...
ROFL that's a joke. Apple saved apple by creating great consumer products.

Aug. 6, 1997: Apple Rescued ? by Microsoft | This Day In Tech | Wired.com
1997: Steve Jobs Was Wrong and Microsoft Saved Apple | PCWorld
Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple - CNET News
Microsoft Saves Apple?!

 

[asterism]

Holy ******* shit, you cannot possibly be as goddamned stupid as you come across.

Note to people who want Libertarianism to take hold:

I was at one time enough of a libertarian to stiffle my gag reflex for long enough to register as a repulican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Didn't seem to help. It's not that Paul's platform had no holes in it but I thought that a man of integrity pulling in the opposite direction of where we were headed seemed like a good thing at the time.

Since then, I've met what appears to be the Libertarian mainstream both in person and on web sites such as this. The level of pure fantasy and willful ignorance to the real threats that large entities such as multinational corporations pose makes it clear that I'm not really a Libertarian.

If you want to see your movement progress beyond a footnote in history, you should fix that.

Kooks drove you away from the libertarians but now you support Obama.

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

Who did you vote for in the 2008 and 2012 general elections?

 

[RKMBrown]

Well, microsoft web browser give outs didn't work at all. Thats a fairly benign example of "runnign at a loss for however long it takes to kill competition". They still have plenty of comeptition in browsers. I prefer google chrome. Which is also free. Or firefox, another free browser.

Same applies for utilities such as antivirus. There are tons of free and paid anti-virus protection and Microsoft isnt winning any competitors out by doing this.

Buying competing corps is absolutely not an example of killing the competition. No one is forcing the other corp. to sell out to the highest bidder. Thats a voluntary contract, it's not killing them out by lowering costs for as long as it takes running at a loss.

I see your perspective. But oddly your perspective appears to switch back and forth as needed to support your argument.

For example, in the case of Netscape, you call forever killing the sales of browsers benign because as the consumer you get it for free. But you fail to recognize the damage caused to Microsoft's competitors who were run out of business. Benign? Microsoft using their monopoly on OSes to selling a new version of an OS that includes a web browser to compete with a new technology is benign? Here you appear to make the argument from the POV of the consumer, certainly not the POV of the company that created the market for web browsing that Microsoft ran out of business with their OS monopoly.

As per utilities, you may not be aware of just how many companies Microsoft ran out of business by utilizing their monopoly on OSes to include their competitor's product in the OS to sell updated versions of the OS.

>> Buying competing corps is absolutely not an example of killing the competition.
Now you appear to switch from the perspective of the consumer and the competition to the perspective of the company that sold out. Again, in this case you are ignoring the perspective of the competitors that remain. Again, you are ignoring the monopolies that the larger corporations have over the sales of product. If a large company is competing with 9 other companies for a future market where the large company starts out with 10% share and buys out the top 3 competitors who previously held say 80 share, the bottom seven companies are left fighting for scraps of the 10% remaining share as the consumer looses all choice in the purchase. As the consumer moves to the new market they are left with little choice but to give their money to the monopoly. If the smaller companies do not sell the larger company will just buy out the two other companies and all of the smaller ones and still end up with a monopoly on the future market.

Netscape died because there isn't a viable business model in giving away browsers. It's a means to provide a platform for other products and services. Microsoft never had a monopoly either.

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

 

[JoeNormal]

Kooks drove you away from the libertarians but now you support Obama.

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

Who did you vote for in the 2008 and 2012 general elections?

I live in what used to be the reddest of the red states. Since most republicans make my skin crawl and I know that they'll win by an overwhelming majority here, I have the luxury of voting for the Green party candidate as a protest against the corporate ruled democrat/republican duopoly.

 

[kaz]

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

My career started in the late 80s in IT and they are a fun company. A couple fun experiences I had with them.

1) They told Compaq they would not license them MS Windows if they shipped Netscape installed on their computers, so Compaq didn't install Netscape.

2) A company called Desqview was cleaning their clocks with memory management. Microsoft had a product called Smart Drive or something like that. Desqview had QEMM, a far superior product. Microsoft hard coded that if you installed QEMM your computer didn't work right. If you changed the QEMM memory manager to say MICKEY.SYS, it ran fine!

Their applications programmers were also idiots. They were coding Windows 3 applications without understanding event driven environments.

 

[RKMBrown]

>> Virtually nobody paid for browsers. Netscape GAVE THEIRS AWAY TOO! Netscape didn't have a product to sell.

Only given away to consumers, corporations had to buy licenses. You are wrong.

>> Norton is alive and well it was purchased by Symantec.
ROFL bought up is not alive and well. Norton went from being the number one PC Utilities company to being broke and having to be bought up by Symantec to save it from filing bankruptcy after Microsoft ran it out of business by extending their monopoly into the PC Utilities market.

>>> Microsoft saved apple...
ROFL that's a joke. Apple saved apple by creating great consumer products. I don't care how many people carried the stupid opinion piece that you you are linking to that says Msft. saved apple. It is a load of poo. Apple was broke and had no choice but to settle the lawsuit. Microsoft paying them 150m to settle their disputes is not Microsoft saving apple. Why do you think the links have the question mark on the end of the statement Microsoft saved apple????? It's a load of BS. It's just some stupid spin someone was given to explain the temporary agreement for supporting office on mac and the check being written to settle the dispute.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I'll help him out...

Microsoft giving away web browsers to kill browser competition. Microsoft giving away utilities, such as anti-virus software, to kill utilities companies. Corporations, such as Microsoft, IBM, GE, etc. overpaying to buy up competing corporations to remove competitive market pressure from their larger suites of more expensive products.

Funny thing about that whole issue, was that supposedly one day Microsoft was going to force us to use their browser if they were allowed to pre-install it on a desktop. How'd that work out?

Microsoft didn't kill Netscape. Microsoft actually saved their greatest rival, Apple.

Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?

>>> How'd that work out?
It killed the over the counter market for browsers, replacing it with a for free open source browser market.

>>> Microsoft didn't kill Netscape.
Yes it did. Here's a primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corporation

>> Which anti-virus company did Microsoft kill?
Norton.

>>> Microsoft saved apple...
ROFL that's a joke. Apple saved apple by creating great consumer products.

Last time I checked, Norton is still around! Try again!

 

[asterism]

I see your perspective. But oddly your perspective appears to switch back and forth as needed to support your argument.

For example, in the case of Netscape, you call forever killing the sales of browsers benign because as the consumer you get it for free. But you fail to recognize the damage caused to Microsoft's competitors who were run out of business. Benign? Microsoft using their monopoly on OSes to selling a new version of an OS that includes a web browser to compete with a new technology is benign? Here you appear to make the argument from the POV of the consumer, certainly not the POV of the company that created the market for web browsing that Microsoft ran out of business with their OS monopoly.

As per utilities, you may not be aware of just how many companies Microsoft ran out of business by utilizing their monopoly on OSes to include their competitor's product in the OS to sell updated versions of the OS.

>> Buying competing corps is absolutely not an example of killing the competition.
Now you appear to switch from the perspective of the consumer and the competition to the perspective of the company that sold out. Again, in this case you are ignoring the perspective of the competitors that remain. Again, you are ignoring the monopolies that the larger corporations have over the sales of product. If a large company is competing with 9 other companies for a future market where the large company starts out with 10% share and buys out the top 3 competitors who previously held say 80 share, the bottom seven companies are left fighting for scraps of the 10% remaining share as the consumer looses all choice in the purchase. As the consumer moves to the new market they are left with little choice but to give their money to the monopoly. If the smaller companies do not sell the larger company will just buy out the two other companies and all of the smaller ones and still end up with a monopoly on the future market.

Netscape died because there isn't a viable business model in giving away browsers. It's a means to provide a platform for other products and services. Microsoft never had a monopoly either.

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

I'm aware of the allegations, but reality just doesn't agree. Netscape never made any profit because nobody was willing to pay for a browser. As to the rest of your point, how did that work out?

Usage share of web browsers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia