🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <60@loria.crin.fr> tombre@weissenburger.crin.fr (Karl Tombre) writes:
>This discussion has quickly evolved into a discussion about models of society.

And you're right.
[long discussion about how monopolies are good because they service every user 
equally]

>You probably are right that free competition among several companies
>would lower prices ***** for big telecom users *****. Sure it will.

Let's talk some specifics. The USPS (postal service here) is having a hell of 
a time trying to get to compete with all manner of services. The have lost 
practically all of the package mailing business to UPS.  Fed Ex. took a lot of 
mail that was urgent and couldn't be delivered as fast by the USPS. Then they 
tried their own over night service. Then they keep cutting the rates. They 
can't compete in an open market.

We hear all the stories too about how if they were to lose first class mail 
the poor guy in xyz farmtown wouldn't get his mail. Hmm. UPS will deliver 
anywhere. So will many other over night services. Kills that argument. 

It takes 5 days to mail a letter to the same guy today. The monopoly is THAT 
efficient. A private service would probably fax the letter to a drop off site, 
call the recipient and let him pick it up the same day. If there were no USPS.

No, your arguments for monopoly will never fly. China and Russia have the 
world's greatest monopolies. Look how well they function. Which way are they 
heading now?    
 
>That also means that the public service should have a more or less
>complete monopoly... if all the big users go to the private companies,
>the public service can't continue only with the small users... I
>for one don't feel uncomfortable about that. Should it be considered
>as the perfect model to have the capitalistic view that you are
>FREE... to starve to death if you have no money for buying food,
>whereas others are free to exploit the neighbour as much as they can ?
>Isn't it a RIGHT of EVERY human being to LIVE, for instance ?

The right of a free society has, as its ultimate freedom, the right to be 
different. Legislated equality means nothing. If we can't have the freedom to 
be rich or poor we have no freedom. Whether a human being has a right to live 
depends on whether he can be a contributing member of society. Those who can 
not by reason of some infirmity become wards of that society. But I don't 
think that we (society) owe anything to those who are nothing but leeches and 
contribute nothing to the welfare of the whole. But that is heavy talk.

In general, one must realize that the world is turning more toward private 
initiative and conservative political philosophy. Everywhere, even in 
socialist Northern Europe, the winds of change are howling. In order to 
compete in a free society anything that restricts such competition will 
ultimately backfire on those who hold out for monopolies of any kind.  


>I certainly prefer the health system
>in our countries than that in the USA, where basically you can get the
>best doctor and the best care if you can afford it, and you only get
>minimal service if you are poor. 

[It's still better then anywhere else though, isn't it?:)]

But yes, it tends to go that way.  It's the same with cars, houses, lawyers,
computers etc

That's why some of us work our little butts off so we can get all those things.
It's the nature of the beast.  But it is also why there are more new jobs
created by small business in the USA then anywhere else in the world.  It's
kept this place hopping for the last 200 years.  We took all the best and
hardest workers from everywhere else and turned them lose so they could become
millionaires.  The system works.

>I for one like the fact
>that here in France everyone is equal (well, hmmm, let's say more
>equal than in the US... nothing is perfect ;-) with respect to health care.

Yes, we heard of that.  Liberty, Equality and off with their heads :)
But please don't make me equal with everyone else. That's disgusting. Just 
give me the same rights as everyone else and I'll be fine.
We could really get into a long discussion about HOW equal everyone is in 
France but we would need another forum for that.


>Of course, others may hold a different view on that matter; that's
>their right. 
Thank you.  We appreciate that.

>But let us remember that the present discussion has no
>sense if it isn't seen in the global context : the model of society in
>most European countries is different from the American one (one
>exception seems to be Thatcher who at any price wants to apply
>Reaganomics to the British economy... poor British citizens ;-).

And for some strange reason she wants very little to do with a united European 
system.  Could she be just a little afraid of all the subsidies she'd have to
carry for all of the inefficiencies in your 'free' farming monopoly?

>No model is perfect, and you can like one better than the other.  But
>as our European countries as well as the USA are democracies, the model of
>society can be said to be a choice of the people in each country (all
>this relatively of course...) and should be respected as such.

Yes, but you should listen to us anyway:::)))
Fred Rump

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