Re: Lisp is Sin

David Golden wrote:
That's perhaps an argument for considering rewarding inventors over and
above the free market, not an argument that patent monopolies in
particular should exist.

So you're envisioning some sort of giant organization, like the Nobel Prize committee, but a million times bigger, presumably supported by taxation? And inventors would have to hope they get noticed, and that the judges don't show favouritism along country or zaibatsu lines? That sounds like a big, expensive, easily corruptible drag on the market to me.

And anyway, the obvious startup-favoring
market distortion to apply in that situation would be
anti-price-dumping and/or anti-cross-subsidisation laws (laws which
already exist in most Western legal systems, BTW, but which are
haphazardly and capriciously applied).

Startup-favouring: Shouldn't inventors be able to sell their inventions to existing organizations if they don't have the capital or the desire to create a startup?

Dumping: Is a crock, as currently defined. Typically based on one of two fallacies, that because 'they' are selling at below my cost of production, it must be below their cost of production* -or- that companies are somehow obligated to sell in ALL markets at or above their price in their HOME market, thus giving an automatic advantage to companies lucky enough to have a large home market and/or one with a low cost of doing business.

Cross-subsidization laws: Who bears the costs of regulators and forensic accountants combing through accused companies' books and arguing about the minutiae of cost-allocation accounting? Sounds like another dead economic loss to me.


The current system, for all its warts, has the advantage of bringing me an awful lot of neat stuff for cheap, having stimulated the greatest era of invention that mankind has ever known. The costs of regulation are comparatively low, and borne by the companies that benefit. I don't think your command-economy solutions would be either cheaper or more stimulative than the status quo. This probably isn't the place for this debate, either -- that's what slashdot is for.


* And, speaking for a moment as a consumer, what's wrong with me getting a below-cost deal if a company is dumb/desperate enough to offer it, anyway?
.

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