Re: [ga] Policy for dealing with controversial TLDs

[RBHauptman@xxxxxxx]

that the "free" market produced the robber barons (and other similar  
scoundrels) is another example of why the "free" market stinks.  
 
(I can see the flurry of emails defending these ill-begotten  scoundrels. let 
'em fly gentlemen let 'em fly..... )
 
sotiris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

I  wrote:
> I believe many people have an interesting conception of what a  free market
> may be, few have a true understanding of it.  What I  have been hearing
> over the past several years from many people on this  list is the
> equivalent of the besmirching of the so-called "robber  barons" in what
> many 'capitalists' point to as the Golden Age of the  free market system.
> Carnegie and the rest had their detractors in  their day too.

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article  at
http://www.city-journal.org/html/5_1_a2.html:

"In an age bereft  of political heroes, the entrepreneurs who forged
America's industrial  economy served as role models for the nation's young.

The best of them  exemplified virtues long treasured by Americans: vision,
energy,  perseverance, hard work, and character. Even though most started
near the  top, enough outsiders, like Gould, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt,
climbed the  slippery ladder of success to preserve the American dream that
anyone could  do so.

But still these businessmen were vilified, at bottom perhaps  because they
did their work too well. So brilliantly did they exploit the  open system
to amass wealth and power that they forced radical changes in  the rules by
their excesses, even as they forged an industrial system that  produced
quality goods on a colossal scale at prices that declined steadily  for
more than 30 years.

E. H. Harriman, who by the time of his death  in 1909 controlled more
railroad mileage than anyone else and had brought  the industry into a new
era based on long hauls of large volumes at low  rates, pronounced the most
clear-sighted judgment on himself and his fellow  Robber Barons. During an
interview, he startled a reporter by pulling out a  sheet filled with data
on improvements to the Union Pacific Railroad. "As  he read from it," the
reporter later recalled, "I realized it was the  apologia pro vita sua."

"But the public assails and attacks you," said  the reporter when Harriman
had finished, "and impugns your motives and  accuses you of all sorts of
things. Doesn't the thanklessness of the job  ever embitter you?"

Harriman responded by slapping the sheet of  statistics with his hand.

"That," he said defiantly,  remains."

Ho, ho, ho! :-o

Sotiris  Sotiropoulos