I’ve studied economics a bit, and I know what the bedrock assumption of economics is: that every human being continuously struggles to maximize his or her wealth and consumption. This means that any kind of political system that runs counter to this basic instinct (like communism or socialism) is ultimately doomed to failure. The only thing that works with the human species is freedom, capitalism and laizez-faire, with just enough government intervention to keep the losers from revolting against the winners and upsetting the apple cart. Losers and winners are inherent to the system. It’s just natural that some folk become filthy, stinkin’ rich, while others stay dirt poor. Nothing much to be done about it; social welfare programs just don’t work. As the late Ayn Rand and her followers might say, if everyone is special then no one is special, and we all then wallow in poverty.

I grew up as an economic idealist, someone who believed that humans could use their brains and communication abilities to re-arrange things so that poverty and injustice would be eliminated, or greatly reduced anyway. But the main-stream economists say that it can’t happen because people are natural profit-maximizers. If you set up a collective system (i.e., government) that takes away their incentive to get rich, they would never come up with technical innovations like cell phones and DVD players and decaf coffee and Viagra. We’d still be living in the Middle Ages if socialism had its way (or something like Cuba, anyway). You can’t have technology and social justice at the same time. It’s one or the other.

I’d like to think, though, that there are people who would still do their best to develop good stuff even if it wouldn’t make them rich (so long as they could be reassured of a decent, comfortable life). I may have an example, a guy named Tom Meinen. This fellow has developed some nice little software applications and he gives them away for free on his web site. One is called “Renamestar”, a handy tool for renaming files (much easier than re-naming in Windows, and it allows automatic sequential numbering; this comes in handy for digital photos, e.g. “EllensBirthday01”, “EllensBirthday02”, etc.). Not only is Renamestar free, it’s also not a plant for spyware or advertising software (anytime you download a free program, you ALWAYS need to assume that it’s a “Trojan Horse” for spyware and adware). A lot of people make good money by planting spyware and adware in their “giveaway” software. But Mr. Meinen appears to be honest when he says on his website that his products are free of the nasty stuff.

Mr. Meinen does make one request to anyone who uses his stuff: “all I ask is that you contact me via e-mail or postcard if you use and enjoy a program . . . this knowledge helps to make the hard work of developing software worthwhile”. My goodness, imagine if Bill Gates and company took an attitude like this. OK, you couldn’t reasonably expect to get Windows and Office for free, but maybe you would at least get fair trade practices and fair prices, versus the current Microsoft monopoly.

But yes, we would all have to become like this for the nice-guy approach to work. One hungry wolf spoils it all for everyone – you then have to eat the other guy as to avoid getting eaten (just what Microsoft does so well). But nonetheless: Tom Meinen, more power to you. You are a prophet, a man who belongs to a more civilized age sometime in the future (hopefully). Mr. Meinen also appears to be a vegetarian (his e-mail address is thru a veggie web site), which IMHO is also a glimpse of a better world.

Oh, here’s Mr. Meinen’s site: www.renamestar.com