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Wendy Goldman Rohm Seeks to Destroy Microsoft
[This letter was read on CBC's THIS MORNING radio show on Jan. 15, 1998]
Re: Avril's interview with Wendy Goldman Rohm on the U.S. antitrust assault on Microsoft
-- Jan. 9, 1998
Dear Avril,
Wendy Goldman Rohm obviously wants us to believe that Microsoft committed serious
crimes and thus deserves the massive antitrust assault by the U.S. government. But
the facts speak otherwise.
In packaging its Internet browser with its Windows operating system, Microsoft violates
nobody's rights. An all-or-none condition of sale of one's own property is not immoral,
and should not be illegal. Contrary to Ms. Rohm's allegations, Microsoft was not
preventing customers from installing other browsers on Windows 95 -- although even
that would be a legitimate condition of sale. Those who don't like Microsoft's terms
should find another operating system or create their own. The alternative is the
death of property rights -- including everyone's.
The real criminal is the U.S. government. Ms. Rohm neglected to mention that the
U.S. antitrust laws are a quagmire of contradictions that hand government the omnipotent
power to punish companies for being successful -- thus making it possible for envious
competitors or power lusters like Ralph Nader to lobby government to destroy successful
companies like Microsoft, because they are successful. Microsoft earned its lion's
share of the operating-system market by delivering better products at lower prices
on the free market. Has anyone computed the vast benefits we now enjoy thanks to
Microsoft -- such as vastly greater productivity, efficiency, access to information,
and prosperity?
Instead of treating Bill Gates as an American hero, the U.S. government is punishing
him for being a hero. In essence, they are perpetrating moral cannibalism -- where
the best are eaten for being the best.
A society that regards Bill Gates--a creative and productive genius -- as its enemy,
and regards Ralph Nader -- who produces nothing but red tape to strangle producers
-- as its saviour, is a society that is morally sick and headed for hell.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1998 Glenn Woiceshyn.
All rights reserved. This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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