[pp.int.general] Are pirates anty-monopolies in general (or only in the area of government granted intellectual monopolies)?

Wed Jul 16 23:09:12 CEST 2014

Ahoi Zbigniew,

Communism was never worked anywhere. The idea might be great, but it neglects human needs, personality, human value,... shortly: Everything essential for society.

It is not a surprise, that you don't find reference to capital in the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is - at least among pirates in Germany - not seen as scientific reliable source of knowledge, because it is written by individuals and not proved by any Gremium. So a German author will set his own definition of Capitalism and an American one as well. And thus not necessarily are the same. At least: Capitalism is defined by Karl Marx, not by Capitalist. Marx defined Communism as his personal preferred political structure, based basically on materialistic items, the ownership of production untilities. Capitalism did not have such philosophers im between his members. Capitalists didn't have the need to define their way of life. But Marx needed something to set his ideas against. So Capitalists didn't know, that they are capitalists until Marx branded them.

So far, concentration of capital is not the number one characteristic of capitalism. It is the possession of the production items oder untilities. Marx even did not think about concentration of capital or power. In this sense his thoughts are anything or many thing, but not political. Politics is about power and concentration of power tools. Capital or simply money is just one of those items.

The article matches the point: Free market and concentration of capital is a contradiction. It ends up in a regulated market - regulated by the ones, who are in possession of the biggest concentration of capital - and not of the production items. The point is, that certain people fool us pretending that we have free markets, and they use the politicians to get influence on the education and formation of kids and young people. The next generations should not be shown, that free market only exists with rules. It is the remarkable property of freedom / liberty: It just can be realized installing tough, strong and consequent rules and a system, which ist able to prosecute violations by an independent justice.

The idea of liberalism als the political philosophy of liberty/freedom always was, to base justice on basic values, basic rights, human rights and civil rights, not exactly on detailed law sentences. Therefore the English have developed Magna Charta and Bill of Rights and the US added their constitution.

Did you know, by the way, that Benjamin Franklin travelled through Europe to revise European Constitutions and he chose at least the Constitution of the Holy German Empire as copy-base for the US-Constitution? It sounds like a joke. But basically the US are a modern copy of the second Empire.

But that leads away from the topic. The article is really interesting. It is time to get back to the basic value of democracy: Liberty. That relation is what many of our pirate fellows here in Germany did forget and they follow left wing ideas, repeating the fights of ancient decades. Trying to win the communist and socialist battles, battles which got already lost before they began.

What I see: In your country the main pure politics issue at the moment is to make clear, that in energy politics the idea to use nuclear power and fracking gas to get out of dependency is an error. But that is something we can discuss another day.

Best regards

Thomas

>-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>Von: pp.international.general-bounces at lists.pirateweb.net
>[mailto:pp.international.general-bounces at lists.pirateweb.net] Im Auftrag
>von Zbigniew Lukasiak
>Gesendet: Mittwoch, 16. Juli 2014 20:36
>An: Pirate Parties International -- General Talk
>Betreff: Re: [pp.int.general] Are pirates anty-monopolies in general (or
>only in the area of government granted intellectual monopolies)?
>
>Hello there!
>
>First I'll answer your question from the end of your comment - I am from
>Poland - and actually in Poland the 'bad' system in our common
>consciousness is communism - not capitalism :) We still remember how it
>was (not) working.
>
>My comment about capitalism was referring to the 'capital' part of
>capitalism - when I read now the wikipedia article about capitalism
>there is not much reference to capital - but it was a surprise for me.
>I thought that the concentration of capital is the number one
>characteristic of capitalism - otherwise it would be called 'free market
>system'. As the article arguments there is a contradiction between
>'concentration' (of capital) and free market - that was what I was
>referring to.
>
>
>Cheers,
>Zbigniew
>
>On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 5:54 PM, Thomas Blechschmidt
><thomas.blechschmidt at piratenpartei-bayern.de> wrote:
>> Ahoi Zbigniew,
>>
>> On first hand your observation is right. But nearly at the end of the
>article, after reading 80% of this document, you find the answer:
>>
>> "There is no market here whatsoever. Any real market is open. Prices
>are transparent. You can enter it or exit a real market at will. You can
>compare contracts. So the free market ideology basically leaves us free
>of markets. The free market ideology is the fastest way to complete
>concentration of power.
>>
>> So the free market ideology has killed markets?
>>
>> The free market ideology has killed markets."
>>
>> The point ist the general misunderstanding between continental-
>europeans - supposedly influenced by Marx, Engels and their fellowers
>theories - and anglo-saxonian point of view.
>>
>> We here in Europe are used and trained to think, capitalism is bad. It
>is the heritage of socialism, the majority of us carry with it with us.
>But, rationally seen, capitalism ist not bad or good per se. It neither
>is an ideology, like  the majority of "left Parties followers" in Europe
>think. It is just a way to manage life and daily business.
>>
>> For anglo-saxonian understanding, it is the perfect way to organize
>economic life in any society.
>>
>> The main value, this is based on, is "Freedom", or "Liberty". The
>political sphere and the economic sphere necessarily need to be strictly
>separated to realize this. There should be no mix between political
>structures an economic structures, which is not transparent, open,
>evident and provable for an member of the society.
>>
>> In that "liberal" world, it is not possible, that persons with big
>economic power get preferred treatment by any office, administration
>oder governmental unit. So to say: In a liberal world. The President of
>a nation or country, like Vladimir Putin, would not receive a big
>companies leader like, Joe Käser, from SIEMENS, for political
>conversation. And there would be no way to spent those "leaders" more
>attention than to other people.
>>
>> The problem you face is your understanding of "free markets" vs. a
>liberal understanding of "free markets". "Free market" in liberal
>context, ist strictly ruled and regulated with the purpose to avoid any
>concentration of power, who might destroy or disturb equalitiy of market
>participants.
>>
>> "Free market" in Neo-Feudalism (compare with the analyses of Juergen
>Habermas, that we are going into a new age for feudalism), even called-
>"neo-conservatism" or even worse "neo-liberalism", means the strict
>absence of any rules.
>>
>> The political gap in Americas society takes place between that two
>ways to see economy. Not between "socialist" and "liberal" models, like
>we are used to in Europe. Liberalism ist not the bad, and socialism for
>sure not the good way to organize a societies economy. The key point of
>democracy is the balance of power. Not the realization of specific a
>system.
>>
>> Pirates in Germany have to face that discussion right now. It led the
>party down to 1,4% in the EU-Elections. I'm  Bavarian, so far member of
>Pirate Party Germany.
>>
>> But indeed, they obviously use it in that article in an ironic way and
>didn't mark that with anything. Might be due to buzz-word searching in
>order to spread up the range of the article in the internet.
>>
>> I'm still looking for international pirates to join our Tem Energy
>policy.
>>
>> Where you from? May be we can meet one day.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> ☠Thomas Blechschmidt ☠
>>
>> Postfach 02 55
>> 86802 Buchloe
>> Bavaria
>>
>> Piratenpartei Deutschland
>> Bezirksverband Schwaben
>> Vorsitzender des Vorstands
>>
>> www.thomasblechschmidt.de
>> www.lacaleta.de
>>
>> 0049 8241 997510
>> 0049 172 8100643
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>Food for thought:
>>>www.salon.com/2014/06/29/free_markets_killed_capitalism_ayn_rand_ronal
>>>d_ reagan_wal_mart_amazon_and_the_1_percents_sick_triumph_over_us_all/
>>>
>>>I think the title should actually be 'How capitalism killed free
>market"
>>>not the other way around - but it is very interesting.
>>>
>>>--
>>>Zbigniew Lukasiak
>>>http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
>>>http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/
>>>____________________________________________________
>>>Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>>pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>>http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>
>
>
>--
>Zbigniew Lukasiak
>http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
>http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/
>____________________________________________________
>Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general