by Dr. Roger I. Roots, J.D., Ph.D., founder and President of Lysander Spooner University I first heard the words “net neutrality” a few years back when I noticed that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was promoting it. I have been a card-carrying ACLU member for more than 15 years, and I generally support the …
Category Archive: the sociology of innovation
Oct 28
US Postal Service has had one profitable quarter since 2006; it has lost $63 billion during that time
The U.S. Postal Service monopoly is unconstitutional* and has caused great harm to the American economy. The Postal Service has had one profitable quarter since 2006. It has lost $63 billion during that time, averaging around $5 billion in losses each year. (To put this in perspective, the annual budget of the State of Montana …
Sep 12
Government failure: U.S. companies enforce their own rights in the global market
Interesting column by Steve Sherman. It seems a U.S. company, CoStar, was allegedly the victim of theft by a competitor named Xceligent. CoStar manages websites with information and photos of real estate properties for sale or rent. The company spends millions annually obtaining information and graphics. CoStar found that Xceligent was stealing its pics and …
Oct 02
Government appears to be helping cover up the risks of donating kidneys
Interesting (and courageous) essay by medical student Michael Poulson in the Washington Post. At age 18, Poulson donated a kidney. Like almost everything in American life, organ donation is overregulated by the government. The government imposes a ‘list’ system and criminalizes any selling of organs or other profit-potential ventures which might unleash innovation. And, it …
Jun 01
American death rates rise for the first time in a decade
Free, capitalist societies invariably produce populations who live longer, healthier lives. Wherever markets have become freer, life expectancies have grown, and death rates have gradually decreased. For years, the only country on earth where life expectancy has declined was North Korea. Now the New York Times is reporting that the U.S. is experiencing a rise …
May 07
Government slave plantation health care generating more ‘group doctor visits’
Every government program designed to help poor people get health care produces the opposite effect: Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare all subsidize artificial demand, causing prices to rise. If government withdrew its evil tentacles from health care, medical prices would quickly adjust downward and quality would quickly adjust upward. Markets always win. Now the New York …
Apr 29
New Course!!: Energy Storage Innovation
Lysander Spooner University will put on an exciting 1-hour course on Friday, May 20, 2016 at 6:30 p.m.: Energy Storage Innovation!! The course will be taught by a local Montana mystery man: “Right On John.” See his Facebook page here. Right on John purports to be from Canada. He has invented and designed a wide …
Apr 03
In the trucking industry, government is demanding what the industry is already doing
Government bureaucrats frequently spot good ideas being implemented in the private sector, and then try to show they are doing something by mandating that the private sector must do what it is already doing. The intrusive mind of the tyrant never pauses. Consider the trucking industry, which is filled with business owners and operators who …
Apr 02
Another Government-Subsidized ‘Green’ Energy Company Fails
For years, trusters of government have promoted ‘green’ energy schemes by which the government subsidizes so-called alternative energy technology. The goal, supposedly, is to build up solar, wind and other alternative-energy industries, until they can compete with (and ultimately displace) fossil fuels. It never works. Solar and wind sources cannot stand on their own against …
Jan 22
“Alternative Energy”: California government to charge taxpayers millions to build electric-car charging stations
There seems to be a religious hatred among government trusters against fossil-fuel suppliers. A loathing almost as irrational as the unshakeable, almost hypersexual, love of self-styled “conservatives” for men in government uniforms. Even as petroleum products have been made cheaper and cheaper by private sector innovators, the government of California is poised to forcibly take …