Re: [ox-en] Free market and the Internet (was: Re: price of software)
- From: Russell McOrmond <russell flora.ca>
- Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 15:27:02 -0500 (EST)
First I wrote:
Physical things such as food, clothing, housing, etc are all naturally
rivalrous. We need to set up some sort of laws to arbitrate this rivalry.
On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, johan soderberg wrote:
Yes and no.
Yes and no about what? You quoted my comment, and then wrote a few
paragraphs about how you disagreed with some of the methods used to
arbitrate this rivalry.
I agree with your disagreement of what happens with food security.
Amartya Sen wrote a number of times, and I agree with him, that hunger
does not come from lack of food supply worldwide, but from distribution
problems and artificial scarcity brought on by other problems (war,
economics, politics, etc).
The fact is, however, that if I eat an apple, you can't also eat that
same apple. We need to arbitrate this rivalry -- sharing (or simply not
hoarding) is one method, and the method I believe in, but the fact I
believe in sharing doesn't change the rivalrous nature of physical things
and the non-rivalrous nature of information.
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses,
VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen
and not a third party. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
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