On Tue, 29 Oct 1996 17:51:56 -0500, Hallam-Baker wrote:
Declan McCullagh wrote:
I'll have to reread John's piece tomorrow (I'm on vacation right now), but it doesn't surprise me. He and I have been arguing about this topic via email for the last week or so. He takes the traditional liberal view of government regulation of drugs is necessary; I take the more libertarian one.
The Cato Institute, BTW, will be putting together a roundtable on this soon.
-Declan
Characterising this as the "traditional liberal view" is somewhat misleading, its not as if Bob Dole or Newt Gingrich would disagree much. The argument is more over which special interest group is to be advantaged by changes in regulation. If I was a citizen of a country where the government was elected by a billion dollars of corporate contributions I might be a libertarian.
Are you saying that you are anti-corporation? That would make no sense. Many corporations are very benificial to society. Take Shell for example. It did all that it could to save the life of that guy in Nigeria, but the "libertarians" who instantly boycotted Shell would have you belive that they encouraged the sentence.
Its important to remember that its the World Wide Web and not simply limited to the US. As long as US companies set up subsidiaries in Europe they will be constrained by European law. In the net.age law is becomming a major export for many countries.
What is becoming a major export? Weak laws? Why would a country encourage criminals to come to it's boarders?
Regulation is not necessarily anti-commerce. UK beef farmers would be better off today if there had been more regulation, a weak "free-market" attitude to public health has destroyed the entire industry.
I don't think you have analysed the situation. It was the regulating that deystroyed the UK cattel industry and put the entire world at risk. The British government protected the beef industry despite a ban on British beef accross Europe. If Eroupe is considered to be the "Free Market" as you suggest, then it would be exactly opposite to what you have suggested. The "Free Market" labled the animals coming from Britian to be of questionable quality. The regualtors in Britian disaggreed because it would cost them a few penny's to slauter the infected heards. Then Britians started getting sick. The rest of the world throws up bans of British beef; Yet the British regulators still do not cleanse the heards. The only way to ensure the desease is gone is to kill every last cow in Britian and bring in fresh stock. THAT MEANS NO GIVING THEM TO INDIA YOU STUPID FUCKS. It is often in a
companies commercial interest to voluntarily agree to be regulated. Microsoft recently signed an agreement to be bound by the European computer privacy regulations because by doing so they gained a business advantage - people would trust them with their data.
This is another interesting point. Why is it better for a company to agree to any regulation? Do you REALLY trust Microsoft? I do not. They write poor code. They probably signed the aggreement because they knew that there product was so bad that it couldn't violate any restrictions or they contracted the work out to the NSA who wrote the code for them and so they know that it can be cracked if they need to track down every last copy of the OS for their marketing group to do a statistical analysis on.
Much of the advertising regulation being discussed is private, agreement on standard formats for image placements for example. There is existing government regulation of advertising in many countries however. In particular much stricter control over advertising of drugs, making misleading statements in advertising and so on.In the UK there is regulation of advertising through the advertising standards council which is a voluntary body in the sense that it has no statutory enforcement powers but has practical authority because the publishers will not publishe ads that fall foul of its decisions.
I belive that this is the GOVERNMENT body called the BBC. We have a similary group up here called the Communist Broadcast Corporation. Actually, I must be fair to them, I do like Air Farce. I don't think your argument holds any water. Different cultures have different social norms. I was quite shocked to see John Clease stark f**king naked on a tea commercial (isn't tea a carrier of caffine? yes. Does caffine change the way in which you body works? yes. Is caffine food? no; therefore caffine is a drug and tea carries that drug.)
A more serious problem however is likely to be dramatically different cultural norms. In the US people expect to be lied to in adverts. In countries where there is regulation of advertising there is a general expectation for comparisons to be fair and for ads to be truthful. I'm just waiting for a major corporation to create an Intel scale PR disaster by applying sleasly US style marketing techniques in markets where the downside is very large. One recent example is Hoover which had a $30 odd million debacle over a "free flights" giveaway that was based on sleasly US style marketing techniques. The company ended up having to live up to the spirit of its offer rather than the letter as it intended simply to preserve the value of the brand.
So? All this proves is that the US is more oreiented toward the free market than other places. In the free market, on's "brand value" is incredibly important. I think you are also missing the distinction between a company and it's marketing. I'm sure Hoover, as in your example, has many marketing camnpaines going on at any time and that every so often an overeager director of the comapany that Hoover hired to do the campain makes a mistake. I'm sure this happens all the time, just take a look at another marketing company: Microsoft.
If you don't believe in anti trust laws there is no basis on which you can object to the sort of regulation by cabal that the advertising standards council represents. Of course such cabals cannot exist in the libertarian belief system since their existence is denied a-priori by invoking the spirit of Milton Freedman. Milton Freedmen is of course a rightwing ecconomist whose theories are widely admired by free market ecconomists who admire Mitlon Freedman.
Does that mean a libertarian is more Free Market oriented or more Command Market oriented? I'm not sure there is any correlation at all. I belive in anti trust laws, does that mean I can object to regualtions? mhayes@infomatch.com It's better for us if you don't understand It's better for me if you don't understand -Tragically Hip