Re: Asimov Site

["Kelli Halliburton" <kelli217@crosswinds.not>]

"Paul Schlyter" <pausch@saafNOSPAM.se> wrote in message
news:8ot6qm$6cu$1@merope.saaf.se...

> > Oh, and by the way -- Communism was supposed to be the result of
integrating
> > Socialist and Capitalist ideologies. And in that sense, there are many
> > Communist countries in existence today; *many* of them in the "Western
> > world," that don't think of themselves at all as Communist.
>
> Well, not quite.  Maybe you've been confused by recent practice in China,
> bot Communism was really the opposite to Capitalism; while the latter
> was founded on private property, the former was founded on common
property.



> > You misunderstand. He was admitting to the folly of the Southern
position
> > on slavery first, then going on to say that the Northern motives for
their
> > part in the war were not much better.
>
> OK -- but then why wasn't slavery allowed to continue, if neither the
> southerners nor the northerners really wanted it to stop?

The Northeners did in fact want it to stop, and many states in the North had
already long since abolished slavery. They wanted it to stop in the South
too, but not necessarily for altruistic motives as much as for competitive
reasons. As a result of slave labor, Southern industries could produce goods
at a lower cost than Northern industries, and the Northerners were being
undersold.

There were a lot of Southerners who wanted slavery to stop as well, but
there was too much dependence on slave labor. There was quite literally no
way out but to force the issue. The havoc that was wrought by the economic
upheaval still lingers, because the South put all its eggs in one morally
reprehensible basket. Per capita income in the South is still lower.

> > In the final analysis, though, what the heck does any of this have to
do,
> > anymore, with the inappropriately archaic way that the sound principles
of
> > intellectual property rights have been applied to modern technological
> > developments?
>
> Admittedly, it is somewhat off-topic here....

Deftly handled; you do not take any position on any of the implied value
judgments I make in my question. Therefore, I'll reiterate them. :) 1) That
the principles, on which intellectual property laws are based, are sound,
and 2) that the specific current implementations of those laws are
inappropriately archaic in application to modern technological developments.