Lessig On Corruption and Reform 138
Brian Stretch sends us to the National Review for an interview with Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig talks about money, politics, money in politics, and his decision not to run for an open seat in Congress. From the interview: "Lessig hates corruption. He hates it so much, in fact, that last year he announced he'd be shifting away from his work on copyright and trademark law... to focus on it... 'One of the biggest targets of reform that we should be thinking about is how to blow up the FCC.'"
"Blow up" the FCC? (Score:1, Informative)
FCC moves aim to curry favor of future employers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why not run it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would have moved... (Score:3, Informative)
FTA:
There may be yet another campaign for Lessig in Congress. More power to him then!
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You won't get the money out of politics... (Score:4, Informative)
A bit of facts [wikipedia.org].
GDP per capita 2007:
Norway: 47,098
United States: 44,765
Iceland: 41,680
Denmark: 38,438
Finland: 37,957
Sweden: 36,687
What made the government grow (Score:3, Informative)
You have just described a government that is wholly absorbed in building a national infrastructure.
If your constituents lived on the Atlantic or Gulf coasts, the Great Lakes, they wanted a lighthouse, a customs station, a ship canal. "Internal improvements" as they called it in those days.
This was never a penny-ante operation.
The federal government was employing 14,000 postal workers as early as 1841.
What made the government grow [americanheritage.com]
Re:Vague?!? Surely you jest. (Score:3, Informative)
That may be the case, but you failed to provide any evidence for the assertion.
Did the Libertarian article you were reading on this topic actually fail to say how the monopolies are caused by government intervention? Or did you just stop reading? Taking the example of the monopoly most often discussed on /., Microsoft's business model is entirely dependent upon copyright, patent and trademark law. Without government support, Microsoft wouldn't exist.
Libertarians wouldn't say we should legalize competing currencies because the US monetary system is going to collapse. They'd say we should legalize competing currencies because that maximizes individual liberty -- people and organizations should have the option to issue their own currency if they want to, and other people should have the right to choose whether or not they want to use it.
As the GP said -- whether or not Libertarianism is workable is a question worthy of debate, but the philosophy is built on such simple, easy-to-apply axioms that it most definitely is not vague, and if the logic appears "a priori", that's probably because the speaker assumes it's well-understood and therefore doesn't need to be explained.