Information Age Republicanism

Meanwhile, Microsoft has managed to become what IBM, Novell, Apple and others tried hard but failed to become: the information technology world's number one public enemy.

"Number one public enemy" is the title that we, by defining the rules of the game, reserve to its winner. Most of us instinctively try to jump on the winning cart and be privileged vassals or at least orthodox subjects, if we can't be the king ourselves. Eventually everybody, even king William, is enslaved to an empire of inferior software.

To free ourselves, we need only follow a simple moral imperative:

Thou shalt not propagate private pseudo-standards in place of public conventions.

This could be translated into competition law, e.g.:

In feudal times, people knew only "I am adhering to this lord. Heaven favors him. You should be on his side too." They were not able to imagine a public life based on a republican constitution.

We must now learn that it is deeply immoral to say e.g.: "I am using this brand's product. It is the standard. You should buy one, so we can communicate." Instead we must learn to ask: "Which public convention will enable all of us to communicate as free citizens?"

Reformed minds reform the law. Reformed laws reform the mind.


Source and Author

Source:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~ucc02aa/phm/infrep9A.html
Author:
Hartmut Pilch. Mail to me or read about me?
Date of last modification:
1996-11-06