One of the best illustrations of the nature of capitalism I've seen is in the film Gandhi where in a scene from the 1940s the people try to process and sell the salt from the sea, and the colonial Brits say, no, this salt, and any profits that might innur from it, belongs to us, and we will use violence if necessary to assert our exclusive rights to this commodity. We own it. You can work in our processing plant if you like. But we own the salt.
This scenario is being played out today in various parts of the world, as attempts are made to privatize water supplies, and to assert exclusive rights to plant seeds.
One of the best illustrations of the nature of capitalism I've seen is in the film Gandhi where in a scene from the 1940s the people try to process and sell the salt from the sea, and the colonial Brits say, no, this salt, and any profits that might innur from it, belongs to us, and we will use violence if necessary to assert our exclusive rights to this commodity. We own it. You can work in our processing plant if you like. But we own the salt.
This scenario is being played out today in various parts of the world, as attempts are made to privatize water supplies, and to assert exclusive rights to plant seeds.
I'm out of the loop on private water supplies, but seed and plant variety rights are a topic I'm a bit more familiar with. With seeds, usually only certain dealers are licensed by the seed producer to sell certain seeds. This protects the seed producer by allowing him to make a living at what he does and it protects the public from misleading sales -- the dealer telling you you're buying one variety when you're actually getting another. Plant variety patents are done much the same way. The seed certification process, which was a cooperative formed by seed producers and opposed by many state governments, tests ALL crop seeds before they are packaged and lists what variety is in your seed bag, the percentage of the total bag comprised of that seed, scientifically-determined germination rate, and a test for weed seeds and noxious weed seeds. Since this program was implemented by the seed industry in the 1950s and 1960s, almost all state governments have caught on and put their rules into law, even though the industry began those measures on their own.
You have a point there. We don't know (or I don't know anyway) if the colonial Brits were doing this to support private intrests (such as the Dutch Royal company), or if somehow the money was going to the British public coffers. I suspect the former, but don't know.
I guess I was pointing out the capitalist view that these types of things (sea salt, water, seeds) are meant to be owned by someone rather than belonging to the public weal--and the measures taken to assert that ownership.
The nature of capitalism 
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