Posts by sarcozona
Music for keeping on
Patents can be beneficial, but are often harmful
One obvious problem [of patents] is that patents, by definition, create monopolies, which impose costs on the rest of society. For example, the patentee could use its technological monopoly to exploit the consumers… But it is not just the problem of income distribution between the patentee and the consumers. Monopoly also creates net social loss […]
New Year’s Resolutions for us all
Rapid, planned decarbonization and transition to renewables concomitant with equal restrictions on fossil fuel extractions. Decommodification of basic social goods that we already know are more efficient and effective when publicly provisioned. A vast shift of resources—and sovereign power—to the Global South, not out of moral duty, but out of rational necessity concomitant with a […]
Tuesday shoesday – Merry Christmas!
Doing state-owned enterprises right
Enterprises in industries that are natural monopolies, industries that involve large investment and high risk and enterprises that provide essential services should be kept as SOEs [state-owned enterprises], unless the government has very high tax-raising and/or regulatory capabilities. … Privatizing politically important enterprises on the basis of dispersed share sales is unlikely to resolve the […]
A lot of our problems are the same problem
recycling simply does not work to reduce the amount of plastic in the world”. And although the public’s enthusiasm for anti-plastic campaigns is partly motivated by the feeling that it is a simpler and more solvable problem than climate change, the two issues are more closely connected than most people realise. Seven of the 10 […]