Klarinet Archive - Posting 000725.txt from 2000/11

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Selmer buys UMI
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 14:22:14 -0500

At 06:05 PM 11/22/2000 GMT, Tony Pay wrote:
>The truth is that clarinets have, to all intents and purposes, been
>'done'. We don't really need competition in that market. The choice we
>presently have is simply a luxury. The illusion that we do need such
>competition has to be continually recreated artificially, by pretending
>that there's such a thing as an instrument, reed, ligature or whatever
>that will turn a mediocre player into a good player.
>
>I for one deplore the role of this group in that recreation, and
>consistently argue against it.
>
>However, where we *do* need something that might be called competition,
>but which is really better captured by the newly-coined word
>'co-opetition' (meaning something akin to the free challenge of ideas in
>search of truth, or workability, akin to the scientific enterprise), is
>in the development of computer software, on which we are increasingly
>reliant.
>
>Our voices need to be raised against the dangerous corporate domination
>of this field, and against tricksy support of such corporate domination,
>rather than against the trivial, merely money-making jostlings of the
>Selmer corporation.

I really cannot agree with this. How much do you suppose that
now-perfected clarinet would COST if there was not another manufacturer
with a comparable clarinet, right down the street, willing to sell it for
less? Greed for the customers' money is both the weakness AND the strength
of the capitalist economic system.

Just as in East Germany, where they continued to crank out noisy, smelly,
obsolete Trabant automobiles, selling them in great numbers because there
was no other option, the Buffet company could have continued to make
clarinets of the same design they did in 1910, were not Selmer, Leblanc,
and a host of other small manufacturers not breathing down their necks with
their own improved models. What would have prompted the Buffet company to
spend the money to develop the polycylindrical R-13? They would have had
no reason to hire Robert Carre in the first place! The capitalist system
spurs development by providing a financial reward for successful
innovation. It is only too bad that the market for musical instruments is
not large enough to generate more!

Furthermore, while those engaged in pure science often cooperate in the
hope of moving the whole quest for knowledge forward, in the business world
this is simply not practical. Corporate executives are duty-bound to their
shareholders to increase the value of their stock. Research just for the
heck of it, or sharing trade secrets with the competition, would violate
this duty. Research that holds financial promise, on the other hand, can
be worth the risk. Yes, there are actually RULES of corporate behavior.
Just like election laws, those rules can be abused or ignored, but in
general they result in corporations creating considerable GOOD for people.
If there was no competition, though, you might actually SEE "corporate
domination," which is why there are anti-trust laws.

Bill Hausmann bhausmann1@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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