Jack Stein wrote:
Here's one example: The poor cannot contribute meaningfully to
their fellow
men. I ask you, who has helped humanity more through works of
charity: Mother Theresa or Bill Gates?
Certainly not Bill Gates. Gates is a perfect example of how one man,
or companies greed can have some good things result, yet overall, it
is really, really bad for mankind. So, in MicroSofts case, the
illegal monopoly resulting from his illegal business practices
resulted in everyone using a common operating system. That can be
viewed as good. The bad thing is the worlds worst OS is now used by
everyone, one that is incompatible with everything else, and one that
has cost the world incalculable trillions of dollars in lost
productivity, development and design.
The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has distributed over $11 billion dollars
worldwide to various projects.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx
Mother Theresa - aside from being a role model worthy of the greatest
admiration - during her entire life probably helped 10,000 people. With
medicines, food, clothing, and compassion. She saved maybe 5,000 lives and
gave hope to thousands more.
The Gates Foundation eclipses her work by orders of magnitude. Every day.
Point is, no matter how motivated, a poor person can only help a few of his
or her destitute neighbors. A rich person can do so very much more.
It's the same with countries. How many relief supplies did Bangladesh or
Somalia send to the Tsunami victims in Indonesia?
Microsoft has been sued. The big one, the one that they lost and
would have cost them dearly, and benefited the world immensely, was
mitigated greatly when the DOJ for some unknown reason (payoff is the
first thing that jumps to my mind) appeals their victory when the
judge decided not only was MS in violation of the Sherman anti-trust
act, but that the remedy sought by the DOJ was grievously
understated. How much it cost Gates to have the victors appeal their
HUGE victory is unknown. I think it is unheard of in judicial
circles for the victors to appeal.
So, the final result was discarded by the judicial system, yes? As to your
supposition that the DOJ and the appellate courts were compromised, the same
claim could be made of the trial court. Both claims are supposition.
As for the victor appealing, it happens all the time. Appeals are based on a
misapplication of the law. Either side can, and often does, appeal when the
law is not followed. The DOJ, especially, has a duty to see that the law is
followed, irrespective of the results. If the DOJ felt there was a
miscarriage of justice, it was their duty to appeal!
In fact no monopoly in the USA has ever been
found to have violated anti-trust laws after having achieved that
monopoly position solely by internal growth (those that have been so
deemed usually got that way through acquisitions).
Microsoft got that way via preventing sales of competing products with
illegal, exclusionary tactics. Everyone at the time knew this, and
the DOJ proved it in court. Unfortunately, greed and corruption
overruled the victory, and the world has suffered, and computing was
set back probably 50 years, maybe more.
So the ultimate decision was unpalatable to you and you attribute the final
result to "greed and corruption" rather than the rule of law. Heh!
That said, most monopolies are good for the consumer.
No, they are not.
I can be persuaded. Give us a few examples of an unregulated monopoly being
provably bad for the consumer. Not what "might" have been, but what is or
was. For example, you cannot prove that the computing world would be better
today had Microsoft been broken up or otherwise bothered - the world may
just as well be worse off.
I would think your best approach to this request would be a situation where
there were two aggressive competitors but, for some reason not involving its
competitor, one of the companies disappeared. What happened to the market
with the remaining company having all the business? Did it gouge its
customers? Or did it lower the price of its product in the hopes of gaining
new customers (As did Standard Oil in the case of Kerosene)?
That said, Microsoft is its own biggest competitor! If it can't produce a
better product in its next rendition of an operating system (or whatever),
its revenue stream vanishes. We're not talking bread here; we're talking a
"durable good." Actually an operating system is more "durable" than the
common things we think of, like refrigerators or cars.
The poster-boy for
monopolies, Standard Oil, drove down the price of Kerosene from
$3.00/gallon to five cents and did it in only three years. The
people who were involved in the whale oil business screamed, but for
the rest of the country night was turned into day by the use of
Kerosene lamps. In Standard Oil's case, it was not the consumer who
was hurt by Standard Oil's practices, it was the competitors.
Left unchecked, as in Microsoft's case, you get garbage products, and
high prices.
Bottom line: What we have is a willing buyer and a willing seller. There is
no compulsion on the part of Microsoft and no despair on the part of the
consumer. Each enter into the transactions willingly and both leave the
transaction better off than before it took place. Wealth has been created.