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# slef-reflections, Year 6
This page will be where most of my date-related short comments appear, newest
first. [Later comments are on another page.](index2) When the year is
archived, I'll also replace this with a table of contents.
### The Myth Of Deregulation
##### Posted by mjr 2008-02-21 (permalink)
[Russ Nelson: The Influence of
Government](http://blog.russnelson.com/economics/influence-of-government.html)
writes:
> "Larry Lessig proposes to lessen the influence of money on legislators.
Unfortunately for him, he is trying to hide a symptom without curing the
disease. The disease is that governments regulate businesses. The symptom is
that businesses then have a profit motive in regulating governments. If you
want a government which is free of corruption, you have to eliminate the
motive for corrupting them."
which looks like utter bovine excrement to me.
Corporations - and the overpowering profit motive of some corporations - are
artificial things, created purely by regulations. If you free corporations
from all regulations, you destroy them. If you only free them from taxes, you
remove some of the few restraints on their bad behaviour in pursuit of profit.
See [Joel Bakan: The Corporation](http://www.thecorporation.com/) for a better
approach. In summary:-
* Relegislate. Base regulations on the precautionary principle for environmental, health and safety issues;
* Set realistic enforcement agency staffing levels and punishments;
* Involve local elected representatives in more of the regulatory system;
* Protect and enhance the role of trade unions and civil society in advising regulators.
Some of those may seem surprising, but if you read the book, you'll see why
those conclusions make sense.
* Comment on this
nate commented:
> ""Corporations - and the overpowering profit motive of some corporations -
are artificial things, created purely by regulations."
>
> Sorta.. 'Corporation' is a legal device created to insulate individuals from
liability when running a business. Other forms of businesses, such as sole
proprietorship, the owner of business is complietely liable for their debts..
If their business fails they can have their house seized and other personal
assists taken in order to absolve him of some of his debts.
>
> So with a corporation I can invest money or be otherwise involved in a
business without the chances of being sued out of existance. I can only loose
what I put into that business. So the whole point of corporations is
regulation designed to protect individuals from... regulation.
>
> So.. of course without government regulation this would destroy
'corporations' simply because there would be zero reason to have corporations
in the first place.
>
> Now on the other hand business and profit motivation are completely natural
phenominon. That is without any form of government or other authority people
will get together to pool their resources to increase profitability.
>
> How large this can grow without government is debatable. Some people feel
that it would grow out of control, other people say that without easy credit
nothing will get done.
>
> The key thing to remember in all this is that goverment and big business are
essentially identical things. They are large groups of individuals who have
their own private reason for being involved in said corporation/government.
They are both elected and controlled by popular demand in a democratic
capitolistic society. People vote for representatives, people choose what
store/products/services to give there money to. Without a large populist base
neither will work in a ideal world. They both have their own rules and
governments and have similar problems.
>
> If corporations is more profitable/powerfull then they will attract
corruption. If governments are more profitable/powerful then they will attract
corruption. That is the same sort of people that run large corporations in the
U.S. are the same sort of people that run the governments in socialist
nations. It's unavoidable.. smart power hungry people don't just go away.
>
> Or, if you want to look at this way, the same people that elected George
Bush president are the same group of people that made Walmart successfull.
Without those people neither entities would be relevent.
>
> The only significant different between a government a private entity is that
the government has granted itself the sole legal ability to seize money,
imprison people, and kill people to get what it wants.
>
> Putting the government in charge of corporations makes about the same amount
of sense as putting corporations in charge of government. However the most
critical thing you want to avoid is government and corporations working
together."
Thanks for the comment.
nate replied again:
> "Your welcome. This sort of thing is fun and it's nice to get a friendly
challenge. To often on the internet people are happy to descend into
flamefest."
I'm not sure where to start in reply. There's a few throwaways (like
"socialist nations" which don't exist any more, thanks to the fascist-friendly
corporations) which I'm leaving alone.
nate replied again:
> "It's a relative definition. Western Europe would be mostly made up of
Socialist countries. Government ran welfare, government control of business.
Government sanctioned businesses. High taxation. Government-ran health care.
All these things are aspects of modern socialism.
>
> The USA (unfortunately, in my perspective) is rapidly descending into
socialism in a very hard way. It's very seductive thing. It seems reasonable
to want to fix society's problems and most people feel weak and helpless when
faced with large corporations or large numbers of people that disagree with
them on important issues. Using the government to enforce change and do good
seems like a correct way of doing things. (In my opinion it's a unfortunate
fantasy and very rarely works without huge negative side effects)"
That's a misleading definition. Merely having a bigger public sector than the
skeletal USA one does not make a country "socialist" in any meaningful way.
Also, there are some things which economics show cannot be provided
efficiently by an under-regulated private sector: look at how much more the US
spends on healthcare per-person than most of Northern Europe. Now, the UK's
NHS is probably not the most efficient model, but nor is an extreme private
sector one. Now back to the first point...
Firstly, corporations do not insulate people from liability - they **limit**
liability. Unfortunately, these days, almost no-one checks how much money in
total can be extracted from the shareholders if the company goes bad, even in
the few cases where it really matters.
nate replied to this:
> "Ya sure."
Secondly, is making good your debts mere regulation, or it is justice and
honour?
nate replied again:
> "Both. Often laws and regulations are passed based on aspects of honor or
justice. Other times.. not so much. It the specific case of going after bad
debtors, then this seems a good thing.
>
> Of course in the past it has been carried to bad extremes.. like the
infamous 'debtors prisons' that were common a couple hundred years ago."
Thirdly, it's not debatable how big and how bad corporations get without
government. Look up the South Sea Bubble (in Bakan's book, or countless
others).
nate replied again:
> "Well the first thing I found when I looked up 'South Sea Bubble' (wikipedia
ftw) is that it involved a government-created English South Sea corporation
setup under a explicit monopoly in accordance with a treaty with Spain that
existed from the early 1700's to the mid 1800's. It was created to counter act
the government debt that occurred during the "War of the Spanish Succession".
>
> This is not a example of a corporation going out of control due to a lack of
government control. This is a corporation that could of only existed under
government control and then abusing that regulation to create a terrible
economic problem. This seems one of the odd things that developed out of the
government originated monopolies that were created during England's
imperialistic time period. Another big example is 'East India Company', which
we are still feeling the effects of today.
>
> It also worth mentioning that it took the might and majesty of the English
navy to maintain and protect those monopolies.
>
> This sort of bad behavior was one of the primary reasons the US succeeded
from England in the first place and why the doctrine of limited government was
established.
>
> If you want to convince me that corporations will grow out of bounds without
government control then you'll have to do better then that. That happened
during a era of total government control over that business and over the
economics surrounding it.
>
> If you can find me a different example then I would love to hear about it."
I don't think I need another example. No corporation exists without government
bullying and corporations are abusing the modern monopolies (sometimes called
the "new enclosures") to create terrible economic problems already. We're
still feeling the effects of the East India Company today, but how long will
we suffer the effects of the Tescopoly or Wal-Mart?
Fourth, very few corporations are controlled by popular demand. For some
people, the choice is between BadCorp 1, BadCorp 2 and not buying an item of
food, [which I wrote about
yesterday.](http://www.wsmforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=86.msg264#msg264)
Corporations are controlled by major shareholder demand and they're insulated
from true popular demand by all kinds of stupidities (opaque pension funds,
for example) which we've sleepwalked into.
nate replied to this:
> "You'd be surprised, then. Very few corporations got popular isolated in a
bubble. (although when they get big there is a good chance that they'll turn
bad)"
Many corporations do get popular in bubbles. That's half the point of bubbles.
> "AT&T monopoly, for example, only existed due to the fact that early in
it's lifetime it had patent protections. No other company was able to legally
compete with them. Total government control of the market place."
Total private control of the market place, enforced by the might of the
British Navy^W^WUS courts.
> "Later on when those patents expired then other smaller companies started to
compete and those companies sold more phone service during that time then
AT&T ever sold in it's patent-created monopoly. Then AT&T was able to
successfully lobby the government to create more rules and regulations over
the phone system and convinced the Military that their network was nessicary
for the public defense in case of a war with the soviets. This allowed
AT&T to keep out competition although the trade off for them was more
restrictions on the markets they could compete."
Fifth, I think both UK and US governments actually took the right to do those
things from Kings, rather than granting it to themselves directly. That's just
a small change here, though.
nate replied to this:
> "Well the UK still has a figurehead monarchy. Of course that is irrelevant
nowadays other then for tourism or war-fuzzy-feelings nationalist propaganda.
>
> The US fought to get out of the sort of economic insanity that England was
going through at that time period. The US government claims to takes it's
rights from the people. 'Government of the people, for the people'. A limited
form of government, a sort of nessicary evil to maintain trade between the
states and protect against foriegn militaries.
>
> Of course it stopped behaving in that manner during the economic depression
in the 1930's and the resulting world war 2.
>
> People forget the reasons behind things like the Boston tea party. Colonies
like the ones created in North America were essentially treated like satellite
countries that England would use as a sort of money tree. They were allowed to
exploit the new world's resources then England would regularly prune them for
money to finance their country and foreign policies.
>
> Besides tea taxation another example of this would be how England made it
illegal for local tradesmen to produce shovels with metal blades. So American
folk had the choice between using wooden shovels or purchasing premium metal
bladed shovels from England.
>
> This sort of thing made Americans want to work around and otherwise cheat on
taxes. They wanted to establish trading with other colonies and nations also,
so that they can avoid the 'English tax'. This was expressly forbidden by
English law, of course. The response from England was to up the regulation and
give lots of "Writs Of Assistance" to help enforce the taxation and regulation
on trade.
>
> Writs of Assistance gave the ability for (in this case Military and tax
officials) for Warrantless seach and seizures. Or maybe it can be better
explained as a blanket warrant. Sort of like a blank check for searches signed
by a judge were you can fill in the blanks. They were allowed to go into any
house looking for financial ledgers or anything else that might indicate
illegal trade or tax evasion.
>
> As you can imagine this sort of thing was almost universally abused and lead
to fairly radical ideas like the Fourth Amendment.
>
> Heh, tax dodging is sort of a USA tradition I guess."
Finally, the big difference between governments and corporations is that
everyone affected should have one vote in a government and be forbidden to buy
more. (Note: there are some bugs about that.) That's why governments should
regulate corporations and not the other way around - and why neither should be
left unchecked.
nate replied again:
> "I donno.
>
> Next time Microsoft begins establishing it's own courts and sending ground
troops into schools and businesses for rounding up people for failing to pay
'the microsoft tax' then get back to me. :) That's something a government
reserves for itself (, although occasionally it will delegate)."
It might happen, but not quite like that. Look at the behaviour of copyright
holders effectively instructing government agencies through the DMCA and EUCD.
Microsoft doesn't need its own ground troops: it can use government ones now.
A dangerous neofeudalist move.
[Comment form for non-frame browsers](../../comp/respond.pl).
Comments are moderated (damn spammers) but almost anything sensible gets
approved (albeit eventually). If you give a web address, I'll link it. I won't
publish your email address unless you ask me to, but I'll email you a link
when the comment is posted, or the reason why it's not posted.
### ISPs should not be forced to disconnect filesharers
##### Posted by mjr 2008-02-15 (permalink)
[Requiring Internet Service Providers to bar users for illegal
downloading](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.stm) is stupid
because:-
1\. ISPs can't tell what we're sending over the network and aren't in a
position to verify whether we have permission to send it. However, cutting off
small businesses and home offices could kill some businesses. I own a share of
[my ISP](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2008/phone) (one of 6000 or so equal
shares) and would vote against opening it up to that liability. I'm not
surprised that [ISPA has already said ISPs want to pass any liability back to
the
accusers.](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/12/anti_filesharing_paper_leak/)
2\. government sometimes doesn't understand what can be downloaded legally.
There's a famous case where a Trading Standards Officer complained to a
Mozilla Foundation worker about their free Firefox browser because
> "it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to
enforce UK anti-piracy legislation"
[Source: Times
Online](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article733264.ece)
3\. there is permission for "fair dealing" in copyrighted material for various
purposes, including current affairs reporting and education, unless someone
changed the law since I last looked! However, some organisations, including
the BBC's 100-million-pound iPlayer, try to deny viewers those permissions, so
it is **easier** to start from illegal copies than it is to deal with iPlayer
(only works on some computers, installs bandwidth-using code into the system
startup and so on).
Finally, where did the 6 million illegal downloaders figure come from,
ultimately? The film and music dominant producers? The Recording Industry
Association of America has already spoken out against legally-required
filtering, in
[http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9861460-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5](http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9861460-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5)
Our software is available for free download and free sharing. The music and
movie industries need to adapt, not be propped up by making ISPs pay through
this sort of bad law. This isn't so much ISP disconnect as BPI logical
disconnect!
* Comment on this
James commented:
> "Yes I fully agree. This business of the UK becoming ever more camera ridden
and police-state leaning has taken a most ridiculous course when they try to
impose this massive requirement on ISPs which one could easily see would lead
to horrific abuses and degradation of the Internet almost instantly. And that
it would give powers potentially for police surveillance on the very most
minimal of reasons. Brown has proved to be a true Neocon Labour nutter. People
must wake up and see what exactly is going on around them hopefully before it
is too late.---- thanks so much MJ for your post you were right spot on with
this one."
No problem. I actually wrote it to send in to a radio station, but it seemed
worth reposting it here.
* Comment on this
### Sunsets, Bookmarks, Fighting Shadows, Conferences
##### Posted by mjr 2008-02-14 (permalink)
I've replaced the top banner on [my personal site](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/)
with a sunset panorama taken from the other end of Sand Bay. Yes, it may look
green and grassy, but it is Sand Bay.
I've added a [shared bookmarks
RSS](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/bookmarks.rss) to my site, generated from
the first subfolder in my Bookmarks Toolbar Folder by [a daft shell
script.](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/rsslinks.txt)
I've put an old paper online. [Fighting in the shadows: moles and
activists](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/writing/fightingshadows.html) is about how
to keep an open group, but minimising the effectiveness of moles:-
> "It does not matter whether an activist is a mole or not, as long as they
work well for you. The mole may be working against you in secret, but they
would probably work against you anyway. To be an effective mole, they have to
do some helpful work in order to avoid detection. They are a resource that we
would not have access to if they weren't a mole."
Finally, I've attended a few events recently, so the next few posts will
probably be mostly conference reports.
Chris commented:
> "I like the new banner, when was the photo taken?"
16:42 on 27 January 2008, according to the camera.
* Comment on this
### BBC's Calendars
##### Posted by mjr 2008-02-08 (permalink)
Fun round-up of web calendars on [BBC Click](http://www.bbcworld.com/click/)
this weekend. [Google,](http://www.google.com) [Kiko](http://kiko.com) and
[30boxes](http://www.30boxes.com) get mentions. I'm mainly using my new phone
but reviewer Rob was quite scathing about phone calendars and didn't bother to
say how well the different sites integrate with handhelds. Feedback by email
was invited... Are there good interoperable web calendars? Any as free
software?
Talking of BBC being on a different calendar to everyone else, [BBC belatedly
announces that iPlayer-for-Mac will come at some point in
2008.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7233252.stm) Sadly, the DG is
still repeating the "only for Sony TVs"-like single-platform explanation and
still not mentioning a (DRM-free?) GNU/Linux service.
* Comment on this
Simon commented:
> "I use Google Calendar at the moment, there's a few third party apps out
there which allow syncing between my phones calendar and Google but none of
them work properly, only allowing the 'default' Calendar to sync - no support
for my multiple calendars (work, uni, personal)."
Thanks for the info, but I won't trust [Google](../2006/google) with my
appointments even if they start sync'ing. Too public.
* Comment on this
### Links
##### Posted by mjr 2008-01-30 (permalink)
[The Phone Coop (agent link)](http://www.ttllp.co.uk/phone) will hold its
workshop and annual meeting on Saturday. If anyone is going and wants to car-
share from the N.Somerset/Bristol area, let me know (new comments form follows
this post). I can't quite afford a 5h train trip instead of a 2h car trip, but
I'd quite like to reduce the damage.
Also, we've just finished and sent the official reports for
[TTLLP](http://www.ttllp.co.uk/) yesterday. We've also various projects which
I want to get finished, including the IPC::Open3 for Koha. If I'm a bit hard
to reach this week, this might be why. We are still returning calls in batches
in our breaks, though, so please please please leave a voicemail.
[Social Source South West](http://www.bristolwireless.net/news/?p=333) is next
Tuesday in Bristol. I'll be there. Will you?
* Comment on this
##### Posted by mjr 2008-01-25 (permalink)
[Nick Leeson: The financial storm is not over
yet](http://www.independent.ie/business/world/financial-storm-is-not-over-
yet-1272641.html)
Surreal to see his byline on an article the same day as a rogue trader comes to light... "Cutting interest rates has stemmed the flow for now, but 2008 will see higher energy costs, higher food costs and higher importing costs which will damage consumer confidence. Right now we can only look to Davos and hope that the global economic leaders can keep positive and stop the markets from spiralling further downwards"
[SFinfo TV Schedule for
Sunday](http://tvprogramm.sf.tv/overview.php?day=27.01.2008)
SFinfo is carrying some of the Davos meeting live again (where corporations tell governments how to direct their populations). Only interesting thing left in my opinion is the Climate Change forum on Sunday morning. Watch and see where our glorious overlords will be taking us.
[How to block all Facebook application and message
spam](http://exploringfreedom.org/2008/01/25/how-to-block-all-facebook-
application-and-message-spam/)
Practical freedom from Matt Lee's Exploring Freedom.
[ Valuing Users by Allowing Comments : David Lee
King](http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/11/05/valuing-users-by-allowing-
comments/)
It makes sense - you know it does.
[ Internet Psychology: Podcasting? That's old-fashioned - video is the online
future by Graham Jones, Internet
Psychologist](http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/2007/11/podcasting-thats-old-
fashioned-video-is.htm)
Maybe I just forgot the obvious, or maybe we haven't really seen what people can do with podcasting yet.
[ Gaba en San Pancho » Blog Archive » what things to check when buying an used
car](http://gaba.protest.net/2007/11/08/what-things-to-check-when-buying-an-
used-car/)
Worst used car I ever saw had a split hose leaking petrol from the carb feed onto the engine block - switching that one off when I asked was the fastest I ever saw a car salesman move!
[ Modern Communicator: Imarco Activ-Media have been
acquired](http://activate.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/activmedia_have.html)
Personally, I find one of the benefits of working in cooperatives is that it's very difficult for us to be acquired and good collaboration is much more common than merging.
[sab39 ... O noes, somebody I don't like did something I agree
with!](http://sab39.netreach.com/Blog/Blog/12/vobId__402/)
I feel the point about the bozo bit is well-made. Is one of the few features of my weak memory a low probability that I keep the bozo bit set in the long term?
[ How You Can Fine-Tune Your Blogger Personality
Perception](http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/11/12/how-you-can-fine-
tune-your-blogger-personality-perception/)
How do you repair a broken perception? Can you repair it, or is it time to delete the blog and start again at a new address? Can you start again, or does web.archive mean past mistakes will hurt you forever?
[robmyers \- My Ogg Player](http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/2007/10/10/my-ogg-
player/)
I never succeeded in accessing anything besides basic file upload/removal on my YP-U2 and Samsung Support broke promises they made to me.
[another blog is possible » Give cyclists a
break](http://chuck.mahost.org/weblog/?p=1585)
"Those of you drive should read this article and change your behavior towards cyclists. You may not like cyclists in the road, but they have every right to be there."
* Comment on this
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