Do try to keep up.
Good question, anyone have an answer?
Sam Stone implied that it was okay for Segway to have a monopoly because they have a patent. Apple has a very profitable monopoly over the iPod/iPhone market, propped up by the government, it’s exactly the sort of evil government/business marriage we shouldn’t have.
Can we, should we, have patents in a free market? Sounds like an opportunity for government bureaucrats to do bad things.
[QUOTE=emacknight;13107981Apple has a very profitable monopoly over the iPod/iPhone market, propped up by the government, it’s exactly the sort of evil government/business marriage we shouldn’t have. [/QUOTE]
You’re joking, right? The iPhone is just a smart phone, and Apple’s isn’t even the biggest seller in the US anymore. The Android system outsell them now. Worldwide, the number one smartphone is Nokia’s (can’t remember what they call it).
Are you joking? Does anyone other than Apple make iPhones? Does Nokia sell smartphones or iPhones?
And until recently, if you owned an iPhone (made exclusively by Apple) in the US, you had the choice of one carrier, ATT.
To be fair, he never said Apple had a smart phone monopoly. The premise is that patents create a very limited minimonopoly.
I’d still love an answer to this.
Speaking of Nokia, they have 40.3% of smartphone sales, followed by RIMM (19.1%)and Apple (12.4%). Three companies represent 71% of the market.
Patents are an extension of property rights - the right to come up with an innovation and not have it stolen. Without patent protection, no one would invest in extremely expensive ventures.
I don’t know of any libertarians who want to eliminate patents.
So you’re saying Apple has a “monopoly” because they’re the only ones who sell their particular brand of smartphones. The fact that other companies sell products that do the same things doesn’t matter to you, because Apple has a monopoly on… Apple products.
And you’re actually NOT joking.
Next you’ll be telling us that Ford has a monopoly because Ford sells 100% of all F-150s, and Honda has a monopoly because they sell all the Civics.
I agree that the free market drives progress.
take the example of the former USSR: despit hiuge research institutes, and excellent scientists, how many new drugs did the scientists of the USSR develop?
Answer: None
While the western countries developed antibiotics, anti cancer drugs, gene therapies, vaccines, etc,-thousands of new treatments. All aided by the possibility of turning a profit.
So what? That’s like saying does anyone other than Ford make a Ford. Ford is a car. There are other cars. The iPhone is a smart phone. There are other smart phones. Do you really not understand that?
I do, but apparently you and RickJay don’t.
The iPhone is a smart phone, there are others. So does Apple need the government to prevent other companies from making iPhones? And is that a free market? The iPhone has features that make it unique, those features are unique because the government protects them.
Ford works very hard to brand it’s image, it does this because the government has laws protecting brand image. I’m not allowed to make a car called “Ford.” I’m not allowed to make a truck called “F150.” And I’m not allowed to use the slogan “Built Ford Tough.”
Is that a free market?
And a followup question: should collusion be prevented in free market?
Interestingly, the only countries that are bigger exporters than the US (according to the CIA World Factbook) is Germany, China and all of the EU, making the US the third largest exporting country (EU doesn’t count). But yeah, that whole free trade thing sucks.:rolleyes:
Um, yes. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a free market. It would be a cartel.
The goverment protects intellectual property rights for the same reason it protects physical property rights. Because people and companies have a right to the things and ideas they create.
I really think you don’t understand what a free market is. It’s not anarchy or “everyone do what the hell they please”. It is the freedom to voluntarily exchange goods and services for whatever price you can negotiate. It specifically requires goverment to enforce contracts and property rights.
IOW, you can’t just set up a company, call yourself Apple and sell imitation iPhones. But you can design a smart phone that functions in a similar manner and sell that. The government can’t just come in and say “only Apple can make smartphones”.
Why aren’t two companies (or individuals) free to work together? Are you worried they might form a monopoly?
And what direction are you going to enforce collusion. But that I mean, obviously ATT and Verizon aren’t allowed to collude and fix prices. But why is ATT and Apple allowed to collude?
Intellectual property and physical property aren’t the same thing, nor do they require the same protection.
Society realized that in a free market, there is a disincentive to create something new, because someone else could just make the same thing and compete. I don’t think you know what a free market is.
You keep saying it’s not anarchy, and I agree. But intellectual property rights go way beyond the concept of anarchy. As an example, how long should a patent last? How generic should we let it be? Who is responsible for issuing patents and copyrights? Intellectual property is a huge gray area, that varies from one country to the next. Eliminating them would be a bad thing, but it would hardly be anarchy.
Are you sure you even know what anarchy is? It’s been tossed around in this thread with reckless abandon. Perhaps you and your friends should try to figure out what you mean by anarchy, or stop using it to prop up your position. What we think of as Western society is a loooooong way from anarchy. How close would you like to get?
That’s fine, but the system you are arguing for doesn’t fall under that description. You want government to enforce contracts and property rights, you also want government to prevent collusion and break up cartels. Even the enforcement of contracts is a huge gray area which also varies from region to region. You want the government to establish intellectual property, and enforce that. Your free market requires a damn lot of government intervention in order to function.
Now that I think upon it, patents illustrate well how markets + government = progress.
I understand free markets depend on transferring property rights around, that those property rights need to be guaranteed, and that society has chosen government as the guaranteer of them. The only reason I brought up patents was that, if you pretend you’re from Anarcho-Capitalism Land, it would seem a very arbitrary device for the government to employ. Wouldn’t it?
Anarcho-Capitalism Land doesn’t issue patents. An entrepreneur selling protective services doesn’t know how much to charge a guy for protecting his idea. First, the entrepreneur would need to know how much the guy should be compensated, if his idea was stolen. To know that, he’d have to know how hard the idea was to come up with among other unknowable things.
But, along comes our style of protective services: the gubment. By giving all creators the exact same exclusive rights over their creations, every shitty inventor gets the opportunity to market their stupid shit, because somewhere there’s a group of people just dying to consume some stupid piece of crap. They should have the right to buy into idiot stuff, just as others ought to have the right to buy into smart stuff. And isn’t that what democracy is all about?
[hums America the Beautiful]
What about libel and defamation laws?
Should Pepsi be free to say what ever it wants about Coke? Or should the government step in and restrict freedom?
What about unions?
The point of a free market is the ability to negotiate a price (ie wages). Do unions help or hurt that ability? Is it collusion by the workers, or is it leveling the playing field against a giant corporation?
If unions are going to establish collective bargaining, should companies be able to organize and collectively bargain?
“Work together” is a vague term. Companies can and do certainly work together and partner. What they are NOT allowed to do is collude in order to artificially manipulate the market through sraising costs or limiting production.
Because they are not “colluding”. Collusion is when rival companies cooperate for mutual benefit. These terms you throw about have specific meanings and I suggest you learn them.
ATT and Apple are allowed to form a vertical partnership because they are not restricting competition. Consumers have other choices besides iPhones and ATT.
Intellectual property is not just about copying designs. It also includes branding. And stealing other people’s design is not considered “competition”.
You are incorrect.
IP can be the topic of it’s own thread. Certainly one could make an argument against any copyright or patent protection at all and that being first to market with a product should be incentive enough. Then again, if you are a little guy who comes up with a great idea, should some huge company with their massive resources and capital just be able to snatch it away from you?
Don’t be thick. People are using the term “anarchy” as defined by “absence or denial of any authority or established order”. Specifically they mean "letting companies do whatever they want without any government regulation or interference.
Again, I feel you are being intentionally thick or obtuse. I’ve thought we pretty well established that government and free market are not mutually exclusive. Government protection of free markets no more makes them less free than having a set of laws makes society less free. It is the nature of those laws and interventions that matters.
The whole point of the free market is that millions of people know what is best for them better than any central body. It also allows people and companies to come up with better ideas and ways of doing things and compete against previously established methods and products.
I have, and I would suggest you consider what their meanings are in relation to a free market.
You want people to be free to negotiate on price, but you also want the government to monitor each step of that negotiation.
The entire basis of the free market is the notion of supply and demand being used to dictate a price. The sell wants to misrepresent supply, and buyer wants to misrepresent demand.
But you want to make sure neither party can do that, through government intervention, and then still call it a free market.
Again again, you want to play fast and lose with definitions, making sure they suit your purpose. Apple and ATT worked together to restrict choice and freedom, if you want to use an iPhone you have to be on ATT. If you buy an iPhone, and have problems with ATT you’re fucked, you have no choice but to also give up your phone. Under your definition of collusion, that doesn’t count. But I’m the one being thick.
Why? Do you have a new definition of competition that you’re not working with?
Sounds like the free market to me.
Or is the free market meant to be fair? What other protections should that “little guy” get in order to help him “compete” against the “huge company?”
Sounds like the Republican Party slogan. But at least now we have a definition for anarchy, which you are NOT advocating.
Uh, okay, so now we have a new definition of free market. Which I realized is why you guys got so butt hurt over my use of the term monopoly and oligopoly.
You are working off a definition of free market that specifically excludes a monopoly, because then it wouldn’t be a free market, because a free market doesn’t include monopolies.
And here I thought a free market is a market in which there is no economic intervention and regulation by the state, except to enforce private contracts and the ownership of property.
Guess I was being thick.