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Do you think it is immoral to restrict employment to union members?

Yes, and we have no such laws in Sweden.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 03:48:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well you are consistent: temp work, employment at will, no IP. Sounds like Von-Mises utopia.
by rootless2 on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 05:14:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Who said anything about temp work and employment at will?

I think it is a bad strategy to restrict employment to union members if that is what you are fighting. Then you will create a division among workers. I think it is much better to go for the law and get rid of employment at will.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 06:37:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ok, this is just as good an example. To say one has a right to a salary and can only be deprived of it by some quasi judicial procedure confers on that person ownership of some completely artificial legal fiction. Our Von Misean friends (who like academic tenure it turns out) will point out that there is no scarcity of work, just an artificial scarcity created by Sweden's intrusive employment laws which prevent Latvians from taking jobs from Swedes. There is no difference between requiring that employers have a duty to pay salary and requiring that listeners to a recorded performance pay the artist.
by rootless2 on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:04:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Have you ever been to Sweden?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:08:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
(Sorry, I was just wondering.  Maybe you live there...no offence meant.)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:08:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Never been there.
by rootless2 on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:18:55 PM EST
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I do not follow your example at all. You say (that our Von Misean friends says) scarcity of work is created by law? Do you mean employment or labour?

Their is a scarcity of labour, as there is a limited number of people on this planet. Latvians can move to Sweden to work because they are within the EU. Few do however as most employments demand that you speak fluent swedish.

Employment is scarce if the economic system makes it so.

There is no difference between requiring that employers have a duty to pay salary and requiring that listeners to a recorded performance pay the artist.

Yes there is. In the first case A has to pay B for B to do something, in the second A has to pay B for A to be allowed to do something.

On the other hand:

There is no difference between requiring that readers of a written text pay the writer and requiring that listeners to a recorded performance pay the artist. So in accordance with your reasoning that would be a euro, thank you.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:20:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=698&date=20041202

As for employment, I think you are being evasive. Abolition of employment at will is a legal grant of an "ownership right" to employees.

Do you also think that publishers should be able to make copies of authors books without paying them?

by rootless2 on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 07:27:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, there is collective bargaining in Sweden.

The rights regarding employment are rights, but I do not se it as similar to ownership right, unless you want to make all rights similar. You can of course call the right to free speach an "ownership right" if you like but I fail too see the relevance.

Do you also think that publishers should be able to make copies of authors books without paying them?

For their own personal use? Yes.

To sell, I think there should be a limited period of revenue-sharing with the author, before they pass into public domain. Just as today, though I also believe that the current time of liftime + 70 years is extremely excessive.

Actually I think that revenue-sharing is the right way to understand a reasonable copyright. And when there is no revenue stream, as in if I email you a song or text, there is no percentage. Back up some time and that was the way copyright was understood.

I note that we are getting quite off the original topic which was patents.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 08:18:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But very enjoyable to read!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 08:31:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Similarity has nothing to do with it. By definition ownership is the legal right to use or possess some "thing". Clearly, abolition of employment at will grants the job holder ownership of a salary and provides a method for revoking that ownership. The US courts, for example, have held that academic tenure of the sort so prized by Neo-liberal economists is a property right. One cannot consider freedom of speech to be a property right.

The intellectual objection I have to the argument you and others make on this subject is inconsistency. If you accept the modern world economy in which one can buy and sell bets on the gradients of price changes of options to purchase shares of companies that exist only to trade similar rights as "property" and where the economic value of such unfair and arbitrary "things" as holding an EU passport or a collective bargaining agreement are as solid as gold coins, then it is inconsistent to find rights to performance or inventions unethical.

The political objection is that your program essentially makes writers, musicians, inventors, and others into wage employees of publishers and distributors. I think that Merck should have to pay royalties to Amazonian indian tribes who discover medical herbs and Siemens should have to pay royalties to Serbian inventors who figure out how to make motors run on alternating current and that Yo Yo Ma should be able to live on royalties instead of following the tradition of begging royalty.

by rootless2 on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 09:46:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The intellectual objection I have to the argument you and others make on this subject is inconsistency.

This is a strawman but you are probably not aware of it. There is no "the argument you and others make on this subject" against IP as well as there is no "the argument you and others make on this subject" pro IP.

If I am inconsistent with others is of little concern to me.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 09:52:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The key difference on IP is "rival" vs "non rival".

If I eat your apple, you don't have any apple left.

If I copy your song or invention, you still have it.

If your read the USA constitution you'll see that IP is clearly defined as optional, IP may be created by congress only under certain condition, that is to say increase progress.

 And the KSR ruling is clear on it: if the patent regime does not promote progress, it is unconstitutionnal in the USA period. Same thing for copyright.

by Laurent GUERBY on Sat May 5th, 2007 at 03:11:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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