Quote from: GideonGono on June 15, 2011, 10:28:53 PM

Quote from: EnterpriseE1701E on June 15, 2011, 06:42:34 PM

Ugh, this is just poor argumentation for several reasons:
1) Intellectual property laws(along with corporations as being people(which isn't responsive either, cause it was a monopoly and corporation long before that court ruling)) aren't a subsidy for microsoft, as many different companies, corporations, and entities receive it.
2) Intellectual property laws aren't subsidies because it isn't a form of favoritism(see 1(this also decapitates your offense on the subject-- if it applied to all software companies equally, then why did microsoft pull ahead?)), but also because it isn't a form of financial assistance.
3) As for the

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There is no evidence that corporations would exist without government granted privilege because there are no examples of corporations existing without government granted privilege.

The government granted privilege makes no sense for the reasons above-- privilege implies favoritism, and unless the law was applied unequally, to microsoft's harm, then the issue is closed-- they weren't subsidized, and turned into a monopoly.
4) Last ditch defense-- just because there are no examples yet doesn't mean that there won't be any in the future. Scientific method ftw.

1. I saw your little trick. You lost the idea battle so you choose to debate semantics. I guess Agricultural subsidies are not subsidies because they go to all agri-business?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

Subsidy/gift/favoritism it's still the same thing. Without IP laws and publicly funded police and other govt agencies acting as enforcers for Microsoft and other IP based corporations, their business model as it exists today will no longer exist. It is favoritism. Maybe not to Microsoft specifically but to the software industry as a whole at the expense of everyone else. This gives said industry more power than it ought to have.

/sigh. This is standard debating process. To know the terms in which you debate, and debate over them is natural, and to not do that means you really are only a surface debater. So yeah, no tricks here.

Except IP isn't IP for Software companies, and that's where your argumentation breaks down-- agricultural subsidies are subsidies because they target an industry-- IP doesn't. It is generalized for the entirety of all businesses and individuals.

So your equation is subsidy = gift/favoritism -- tell me where in any IP law, there is specific, specific reference to Microsoft, any of their competitors, or any business sector as a whole.

Also, you know you're merely a talking head when you advocate for private police. But more to the point, the debate, which you're trying very cleverly to shift, is about subsidies, not about private police or gov. agencies.

Question for you-- do any other businesses, private entities, or others benefit from these IPs?

And lastly, it doesn't give them any more power than they ought to have. This is on the same basis of protecting one's body from a murderer-- police need to take care of that as a preventative measure, and this needs to be in place as a breach in IP would cause damage to these businesses that wouldn't be fixable.

But I digress. Please tell me why this is a subsidy, cause nothing in the wikipedia article said anything that would back you up, and I read it twice.

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2. MS pulled ahead because of the firms receiving said benefits from govt they were best (relatively) at satisfying consumers.

But isn't that the invisible hand of capitalism? If they were the "best (relatively) at satisfying consumers", that would make consumers want to come back and buy more-- so why isn't this a case of an incredibly successful business model? And once again, you've taken that this is a benefit specific to MS as a given, which has yet to be proven, and perhaps has been disproven-- didn't we just talk about how many software companies would have logically gotten that "benefit" extended to them?

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3. Again, govt favors corporations over the people. Corporations proceed to abuse people with legal protection from govt (e.g. Deepwater horizon, BPs liability is capped at ~$100m BY LAW!. Socialists decry the corporations abuses and "faliures" of the "free market." Govt proposes new regulation. Corporations lobby hard and get legislation watered down/new bill that is nominally populist but pro-corporation. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

This isn't responsive to the debate of whether or not IP = subsidy. Quite frankly, you can bitch and moan about corporations all you want, I'm in agreement with you-- but for the purposes of this, I'm only interested in that question-- does IP = subsidy?

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Limited liability at present is a State-granted privilege which works like this. Suppose that Happy Drug Company (HDC) has $100 market value financed solely by stock (equity). If HDC puts out a drug that unintentionally harms people, they or their survivors can sue the company but not the stockholders or manager-owners of the company. The liability of the latter two groups is limited. That means that the most that can be recovered depends on the worth of the company's assets that can meet the claims. The two main possibilities are that the company has enough assets to pay off the claims and that it does not have enough.

For example, if the company used up $40 of its value in paying off claims, the stockholders might be left with $60. In this case, the limited liability would not hurt those who were harmed because the company had enough to pay off. If the claims came to $135, however, then the company could pay at most $100. (I am intentionally simplifying the situation in a number of ways.) The people damaged could not legally assess the individual stockholders or the manager-owners for the other $35. They would lose $35. This situation is clearly unjust, and this is why libertarians do not favor a State-imposed limited liability law for companies. In a real free market, those damaged could sue the owners for the full amount of damages.

Not relevant, see previous response.