Linux

[John Kawakami]

At 07:40 PM 2/22/99 -0600, you wrote:
>On Monday, February 22, 1999 at 23:41:58 (+0000) Chris Burford writes:
>>The Conference of Socialist Economists (in the UK) last year organised a
>>meeting by a speaker who argued convincingly that the internet was an arena
>>where the economics of cooperation were more rational than the economics of
>>capitalist competition. 
>
>And where is "competition", long ago banished from most of the
>economy, ever more "rational" than cooperation?
>
>>The two are finely balanced, but cooperation although slower...
>
>I disagree.  Competition usually produces immense energies spent in
>going noplace --- as Dave Noble called it, our society is a dynamic
>one which goes nowhere.

If there's a disagreement about the right way to do something, then,
competition should be used.  If there's a general consensus, then 
cooperation should be used.  That's the way I see it.

If the disagreement is about who should have a bigger pile of money,
well, that's a little social malajustment (in my opinion) and can be
corrected with a big can of whup-ass (or humility).

There are times when you wish to engage in competition for its
own sake.  That's best relegated to sports.


>The critical issue here is to examine the ways in which competition is
>padded with subsidies while cooperation (outside of corporations) is
>left to its own devices, often horribly underfunded.  When compared on
>equal footing, I think cooperation wins hands down.

When done incorrectly, cooperation can be expensive.  If everyone is
so eager to cooperate that you keep adding in just-one-more suggestion,
you end up with a big ugly muddle.


>Bill

John Kawakami johnk at cyberjava.com
http://www.riceball.com/ethnoveg - the ethnic studies + vegetarianism list