Why are there so many statists and communists here on this li st now?

[Harmon Seaver]

On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 10:30:27AM -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
> > 
> An anarchocapitalist society is capable of much
> swifter innovation than a centralized one - I think 
> we agree on that (see Cold War for many 
> examples).
> 
> However, I don't think that a authoritarian society 
> can absorb and use innovations gleaned from a
> decentralized one of similar size at a pace high 
> enough to keep up.
> 
> The barrier is that the centralized society requires
> some gating mechanism to decide *which* innovations
> to adopt. This gating mechanism (presumably a 
> government ministry of some sort) has to vet innovations
> not only for 'is it useful?' but also for 'in the long term, 
> will it undermine our central control?'. This mechanism
> has a limited bandwidth, and acts as a limiting factor
> in the centralized societies ability to absorb innovation.
> 
> Examples are numerous; the tight restrictions on 
> Internet access in many authoritarian countries is
> just one of the most recent. 
> 

  Obviously -- it's like comparing M$ development with linux, there's just no
way they can compete except thru repression. 

-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com