Common Sense for the New Millennium
by Mitch Stone, the Accidental Expert
These are the times that try men's souls.
Over these many columns, I have never made it a consideration whether a subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it was right or wrong; for that which is right will become popular, and that which is wrong, will soon lose the power of delusion, and sink into disesteem.
In the following lines I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.
There are persons who see not the full extent of the villainy which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that Bill Gates, if he prevails, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly to expect mercy from those who have refused to obey the Department of Justice.
Some would suppose the present king of technologists to have had an honorable origin; whereas should we trace him to his first rise, we would find the him nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing his power, and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one.
I have heard it asserted by some, that as the computer technology market hath flourished under its connection with Microsoft, that the same connection is necessary towards its future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument.
We may as well assert, that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat; or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that the technology market would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no monopolistic power had any thing to do with it.
Absolute monopolies have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, and are not bewildered by a variety of choices.
But Windows is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every computer technician will advise a different medicine.
It is for competition that we should hunger, not the illusion of free goods, for what we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives a thing its value.
Competition in every market is a blessing, but monopoly even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the miseries of unregulated monopoly, which we might expect in a market in which competition has been confounded, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer!
And however our eyes may be dazzled with Internet strategies, or our ears deceived by digital sounds; however streaming video may warp our wills, or Windows 98 darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say what is right.
Monopoly is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of robber barons are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
For were the rules of competition clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no Janet Reno; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his operating system to furnish the means for the protection of free markets; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.
Wherefore, the preservation of free markets being the true design and end of the Sherman Antitrust Act, it unanswerably follows that whatever court of law thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, within the shortest interval and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
Monopoly, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the preservation of their freedom to choose whichever Web browser is to their preference, have staked their all upon this seemingly doubtful event.
With profuse apologies to Thomas Paine, the father of all patriots.
03 July 2000 |
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