Comment of the Day - October 8, 2005

Arguably, to be anti-competitive is to be anti capitalist. Locking the market in to a cycle of often costly upgrades and doing deals with governments to tie public services into legally questionable contracts is not anything approaching free market economics.

Bill Gates's vision is for "one world, one net, one program". Doesn't sound to me like he's planning on sharing it with anybody.



If the market is seen as, and is allowed to be, a cut throat place of under handed deals and merciless competition and moral compromise when expedient, then it follows that companies will be the same. This is also true of politics.



The issue of whether or not to keep religion and state affairs separate has been a major one in history. Perhaps we should consider whether to keep business and state apart. It is wrong that companies can influence policy to their advantage and evade the law by abusing the legal system.



Take the recent EU fine for Microsoft. To make things a little fairer the fine should have been paid straight away and put into an account. At the end of the trials, if Microsoft win, they get their money back. The interest goes to help the homeless of Europe. A system like this would encourage better behaviour by corporations and at the same time, reduce the amount of time and money wasted on endless appeals.

This isn't likely to happen though, several administrations in this country (the UK) have come into power promising reform and the end of corporate sleaze and the closing of "tax loopholes" and little has changed. Twas ever thus.

A somewhat daunting task is in front of us. To change. To change the economic system so it doesn't rely on a constant stream of profit generated by an endless circle of produce-consume-discard. It can only come from the consumers, via education. And education by example not by dictat. Which in turn means using the media. Where you come up against the influence of the "multi-nationals" again.



I suspect the coming months and years will be most interesting. Can the open source model really invade consciousness to the point where it begins to change society and government?