Fun with langauge.... Re: [Patents] Greenspan on property

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On 6 Apr 2003, Alex Macfie wrote:

> Which is, of course, McCarthyite (meaning Joe not Arlene). But 
> communism means centralized state control of ideas as well as 
> everything else,


  I doubt if I will be the only one to mention this, but Communism is 
unrelated to centralized state control.

  Economic systems such as Socialism, Communism and Capitalism are
entirely separate from governance systems like democracy, feudalism,
fascism, etc.


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=communism
   1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective 
      ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the
      common advantage of all members.

  The closest thing that North Americans will have knowledge of is not the
previous Soviet Unions, but the cooperatives movement which is the above
concept but under specifically democratic control. http://www.coop/

  The best way to understand coops is to read the principles of a 
cooperative:  http://www.ica.coop/ica/info/enprinciples.html

(By the way, I live in a housing cooperative here in Ottawa, Canada, which 
is why I am familiar with this movement).



  What the USA was fighting against during the cold war with Russia was
best called State Capitalism -- a situation where a powerful centralized
government (a form of a corporation, but not the business entity people
think of) controlled the means of distribution and production.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=corporation
  #  Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body 
     corporate.
  # A group of people combined into or acting as one body.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=capitalism
  An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are 
  privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the 
  accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.


  I do not believe it was the economic system that most people thought
they were fighting against, but the centralization and unaccountability of
governance.

  Some who are part of the so-called "anti-Globalization" movement have
continued that same fight in a post cold-war era.  They see any movement
to centralize power within corporations as having the logical conclusion
of bringing their country to the state in which Russia was in the past.  
Like those who use term "communism" to mean a centralized (feudalistic,
fascist, etc) government, those in this movement also have a different
meaning of the word 'globalization' than the dictionary.

  http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=globalization
  "To make global or worldwide in scope or application."


  I happen to support globalization in the "think global, act local"  
sense, but oppose some of the same policies the so-called
anti-Globalization movement does as I disagree with "think local, act
global".  I happen to think that globalized Investment policy (MAI, NAFTA
chapter 11) and globalized Intellectual Property fall into the "think
local, act global"  way of thinking I largely disagree with.  These
policies, if they work at all in a given country, really only work in a
given form on a domestic level.

  In order for international economics to work we need to keep local
economic incentive models local as different parts of the world require
different models.


  I could go onward with this language confusion, but the important note
to make is that different people understand these words differently.  It
is often useful to choose a dictionary and to agree to use the words as
they are described in that dictionary.  Anything else will continuously
lead you to confusion.

  The purpose of language is not to correct everyone who thinks
differently than you, but to try to use common language so that you can
find out what that person really thinks in the first place.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/