Comment by adamcstephens | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamcstephens | Hacker News Reader

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Regulations are the only reason Windows even exists. If had not been for government antitrust laws and their enforcement, IBM would have stifled the PC market before it even began.[1] The thing about these cases is that they don’t even have to fully succeed to open the space for competition. The case against Microsoft continued this trend, providing space for Google and the monopolies of today. So regulation isn’t just good for society, it’s necessary to ensure a competitive market.

Taxation ensures that all of society benefits as the collective wealth increases. It pays for shared resources, and provides for a shared safety net. Taxation isn’t confiscation, it’s the cost of doing business and thriving in a complex society. Trickle down and deregulation are awful policies that only destabilize.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/15/business/us-vsibm.html

> If had not been for government antitrust laws and their enforcement, IBM would have stifled the PC market before it even began.

Your reference takes a viewpoint that is, to say the least, questionable. IBM didn't even comprehend the PC market. If they had, they would never have given the license for MS-DOS to Microsoft. Nor did they comprehend the market for graphical user interfaces when they told everyone in the late 1980s that yes, OS/2 would be wonderful when it came along but there was no rush, they were much more concerned about coming out with new mainframe hardware and software. Bill Gates didn't want to wait that long, and the result was Windows. IBM had no clue what he was even doing until it was too late.

If you want to look at what antitrust law really accomplished, look up what happened to Alcoa Aluminum. Their "violation" was providing aluminum more cheaply and in greater quantity to their customers than any competitors could. Their breakup in an antitrust lawsuit made aluminum more expensive and scarcer, causing huge costs to industry and ultimately to consumers. Your rosy view of the benefits of regulation is a myth.

> Taxation ensures that all of society benefits as the collective wealth increases. It pays for shared resources, and provides for a shared safety net.

If that was all our tax money was used for, I wouldn't complain. But it isn't.

Not to mention that much of the money the government spends doesn't even come from explicit taxation; it comes from printing money, which has the same economic effect as taxation--us ordinary citizens have our buying power reduced--but is more politically palatable because most people don't understand what is being done to them.

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