[Sussex] Society (was: Kylix and now PHP)

[Steve Dobson]

Mark

On 06 June 2003 at 09:36 Mark Harrison 
> > The economies of scale that a super-sized businesses can make is
> > only good for themselves and their shareholders.  For the society
> > at large lots of small businesses is better.  They employ more
> > people, pay more tax and generally contribute more back.  At least
> > that what I've been told by an economist.
> 
> Can I make a subtle distinction...

As it is you Mark, yes.
 
> AIUI, it's not that "lots of small businesses is better", but "lots of
> _competing_ businesses is better".

I'll give you that.

> Now, inevitably, if you have lots of businesses in a market 
> space, then they are going to be smaller than if that market
> space were a monopoly. However, the logic is that competition
> drives innovation and efficiency (by rewarding those who become
> more competitive and innovative), and thus is able to expand the
> size of the market.

I sort of take that as a given - maybe I shouldn't have.
 
> Example of market expansion - Sinclair Research in the early 
> 1980s. Small company, brought out a lightweight product (the
> ZX80) in a market where the IBMs were not efficient enough to
> compete. I'd be willing to claim that the ZX80 didn't take ANY
> market share from IBM, but did expand the market for computers
> down into a new space.

I very good example.  I agree IBM were not interested in the home
market at all.  I'd even suggest that they only got interested in
the desktop market because it was taken business computing away
from the data centres.
 
> However, balanced against this, you have the argument that 
> "lots of small businesses employing more people to do the
> same thing" is bad if it means inefficiency. An example here
> might be the farming industry.  While having lots of smallholders
> with a couple of acres each producing food might be good inasmuch
> as it employed more people, it wouldn't actually produce any
> MORE food than small modern farms of 50-100 acres. When you have
> high unemployment, you might see a benefit in more people working 
> to produce the same, but when you have low unemployment, you want
> these people OFF the land, into areas where they can add something
> else to society.

Another good point, despite what we're told by our girlfriends
site really does matter :-)  But my goal here is the happy 100%
employment for every worker of a society.  It has been shown (I
believe) that being valued is fundamental to an individual's
self esteem.  Allowing businesses to grow so that there are more
workers than jobs for them is not good for society.  You either 
have to over tax those that do work or let the unemployed become
second class citizens.  I don't like either of these extremes,
so for me 100% employment is the goal.

> While capitalism has its problems, it's hard to argue that it 
> has proved a very effective method of structuring society to
> promote efficiency and innovation.

Surely this is true only within certain constraints.  Britain was
at its best back in the 19th century when we had lots of small
medium sized companies all competing.  If someone came up with a
good idea then if one company didn't see it there were many other
about who might.  I'd argue that the same was true for the US in
getting to its height, but am less sure of it's industrial history.

I consider the conditions for competition in monopolies to be very
similar to that under communist central control.  If those above
don't see the value of a new idea then it has no where to go.

There are a large number of examples where the Russians have come
up with better solutions that the West.  Some were recognised but
some have not been able to be used until the wall came down.  What
is needed is a fabric where ideas can be pursued.  Some will fail,
but others will not and go on to improve the life of those in the
society.

> The next 50 years are going to be interesting however... 

Agreed

> we're seeing the formation of communties where the medium of
> exchange is NOT money. Instead it's knowledge. I refer, of
> course, to the OpenSource community. The motivation to develop
> OpenSource is not usually financial.  Instead it's that
> by giving something to the community, you will get something 
> in return - software, peer support, assistance, etc. It's, at
> the moment, hard to tax this... which will increasingly leave
> governments floundering  as a higher and higher proportion of
> "effort" (previously taxable) goes  into OpenSource, and you
> can't tax gifted time!

I don't think there is a need to tax this.  If money is not spent
on one thing it is spent on another.  Not everything is taxed by
usage.  The road system is a very good example, you pay the same
tax (for a class of vehicle) regardless of the number of miles
you travel.  Of course the tax on petrol gets you their.

But there are many other examples where their is no tax on usage,
just a standard tax applied to all.  You local council tax goes
on parks and other public places where no other charge is made.

Steve