Capitalism, Copyright, Privacy and the ‘Only Bad People’ Fallacy

At the moment, capitalism doesn’t have a good name. Associated with global corporations, outsourcing and poor working conditions, it’s gradually gotten become seen as something many individuals wish was scrapped altogether.

And the same goes for copyright too. It’s seen as having a negative effect on society, with the concept being associated more and more by Disney, DMCA notices and the terrible state of things like YouTube’s copyright system.

But as much as it’s become the popular image, it’s also one I disagree with. Why?

Because people… misunderstand exactly what concepts like capitalism and copyright actually are.

Put simply, they think both are simply tools of corporate oppression. That somehow, the world would be a magical peaceful place if neither existed but those evil corporate overlords implemented them to ‘enslave us all’.

In other words, people seem to think they only benefit corporations.

However, that’s not the case. After all, at the end of the day, what is capitalism?

Well the Oxford Dictionary defines it like this:

An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

And the Merriam Webster one gives this definition:

An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

So what part of it do you disagree with anyway?

Do you believe the government should control all means of production and that companies should be banned outright?

That the free market is a terrible idea and that people shouldn’t be able to choose between competing products?

Do you feel that private property shouldn’t exist and people should somehow be banned from selling their work?

Probably not. Some of you may feel that way (usually the folks who feel the Soviet Union was a great idea let down by bad leadership), but I suspect most of you would despise the idea of not being able to own anything or having all products manufactured by a central government committee with no form of choice available.

Cause you’re not gonna get many good games if the video game industry and all indie studios cease to exist. Or if every film, book and play is written and created by a team in Parliament or the White House.

No, what you’re more likely against is corporations abusing people and the law to get their own way at the expense of humanity in general. Against people being paid wages too low to live on, being charged through the nose for medicine or health insurance or gradually trying to (somewhat ironically) kill off the right to own property with licenses and ‘cloud’ services.

And that’s fine. There’s a perfectly valid capitalistic system which prevents these (and other) abuses based on the drive for pure profit. It’s the kind of social democracy system you see in Nordic countries like Sweden or Denmark. The one with a public healthcare system, decent workers rights laws and generous government help for doing things like starting your own business.

But people don’t seem to understand this, and put the blame for ‘crony capitalism’ and ‘exploitation’ on capitalism as an idea. Hence we get stuff like the Doctor in Doctor Who’s Oxygen episode saying humanity will move on from capitalism after a company murdered its workers to save money on air on a space station:

Yet that’s the kind of thing that would never happen in a normal society with capitalism. That’s because why capitalism and the free market is important, so are human rights laws, workplace health and safety laws and who knows what other stuff.

However, people don’t get this. They think ‘capitalism is abuse’, and then imagine any alternative as some happy go lucky world peace thing like that scene in the Simpsons:

The same goes for copyright and IP laws too. Yes, they’re abused to hell and cause problems at the moment.

But like capitalism, they’re not purely for the benefit of the rich and powerful. They’re for the benefit of all of us.

Think about it. Imagine if anyone could use any IP they wanted with no credit and make as much as they could from it.

That’d be good for fans I guess. Since the likes of Mickey Mouse could be used in games and cartoons and films with impunity.

Disney wouldn’t be able to stop you using their characters or stories.

Yet at the same time…

Nor would you be able to stop Disney using your work.

Seriously. There’s no ‘large companies get treated one way, small companies another’ here. Any changes to copyright and fair use (for good or bad) apply to everyone.

So if you get rid of it altogether… well, a large company can now take your work, spend millions of dollars marketing it and rake in the cash without giving you a cent.

That may be fine for some people, and it doesn’t mean copyright and trademark laws shouldn’t be loosened. They really should be, and fair use should be made a significant bit stronger than it is at the moment.

But it shouldn’t be completely gotten rid of altogether, since that would benefit larger creators even more than smaller ones.

Still, specifics aside, why do people make these mistakes? Why are some people so keen to blame things like capitalism for all of the world’s flaws?

Well, I think it comes down to a weird informal fallacy. One that basically says “X is often taken advantage of by ‘evil’ people, so X is wrong and should be scrapped”.

Or maybe:

“The most visible examples of X show it helping ‘evil’ people and hindering ‘good’ ones, so X only helps the evil”

And you can see this everyone.

You can see it with privacy, with people (often politicians) complaining about stuff like Tor because ‘criminals use it”.

It can be seen with freedom of speech, with comments asked for it to be limited because of ‘hate speech’ or ‘internet trolls’.

Heck, it was even present with the whole Brexit debate and arguments about the EU in general. For those who support it, they often say the EU is good because they only see the positive things it does, whereas its opponents often say it’s bad because they only see the negative actions.

In all cases… it’s not really an accurate picture. It’s a distorted, one sided picture that makes something out to be good or bad based purely on the limited aspects you can see for yourself.

And this sort of thinking should be avoided at all cost. Don’t assume something is necessarily bad just because bad people profit from it, nor assume the only way to ‘fix’ society is completely scrap giant portions of it.

Because whether you’re talking about capitalism, IP laws, democracy, privacy or freedom of speech, they’re things that help everyone if applied well. Terrible people misusing the system doesn’t mean that the ideas the system is based on are fundamentally broken.

Don’t assume they are.