Internet defamation litigation is not the same as traditional libel litigation. Unique challenges facing plaintiffs seeking a remedy for destroyed goodwill of a business or damage…
Abstract
Internet defamation litigation is not the same as traditional libel litigation. Unique challenges facing plaintiffs seeking a remedy for destroyed goodwill of a business or damage to reputation include: anonymity of the author responsible for the defamation, cost of successfully tracking down the defendant and jurisdiction issues. This article considers certain legal issues raised by these unique problems and the efficacy of solutions offered in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
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The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily…
Abstract
The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.
At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington on June 5th Councillor A. J. RICE‐OXLEY, M.D., Chairman of the Public Health Committee, brought up a report as…
What proof have the public, independent of the assertions of the makers, that all the firms whose products are sold indifferently by the shopkeepers use only the best materials;…
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What proof have the public, independent of the assertions of the makers, that all the firms whose products are sold indifferently by the shopkeepers use only the best materials; or, indeed, that a large number of the articles sold are not mixtures more or less objectionable or fraudulent ? This, in effect, is the question put by a writer in a West of England newspaper, and it might be used as a text upon which to write a lengthy homily on the adulteration question and on the astonishing gullibility of the public. As a matter of fact the only evidence of the character and quality of food and other products, in regard to which there is no independent guarantee, is that which is afforded by the standing of the makers, and to some extent of the firms which offer them for sale. And this evidence cannot, under any circumstances, be looked upon as constituting proof. The startling allegations so commonly put forward by advertisers with respect to their wares, while they may be ineffective in so far as thinking people are concerned, must nevertheless be found pecuniarily advantageous since the expense involved in placing them under the eyes of the public would otherwise hardly be incurred. Many of these advertised allegations are, of course, entirely unjustifiable, or are incapable of proof. It may be hoped that the lavish manner in which they are set out, and their very extravagance, may, in time, result in producing a general effect not contemplated by the advertisers. In the meantime it cannot be too often pointed out that proof, such as that which is required for the satisfaction of the retailer and for the protection of the public, can only be obtained by the exercise of an independent control, and, in certain cases, by the maintenance of efficient independent inspection in addition, so that a guarantee of a character entirely different to that which may be offered, even by a firm of the highest eminence, may be supplied.
The procedures and rules the insurance industry writes in the polices it sells amount to a form of private legislation enforced by the state. Such authority creates a powerful…
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The procedures and rules the insurance industry writes in the polices it sells amount to a form of private legislation enforced by the state. Such authority creates a powerful lever for social change, from easing the diffusion to new technologies to slowing climate change. What maintains a sense of fairness in the way insurance firms shape society is an informal but stable network that interconnects them around the globe. A handful of specialist firms occupy key notes in maintaining this network. While these specialists aggressively compete over market share and profits, they also prioritize long-term relationships with their clients and competitors.
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Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and…
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Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and judicial decisions that contain 2,041 quantitative estimates of overcharges of hard-core cartels. The primary findings are: (1) the median average long-run overcharge for all types of cartels over all time periods is 23.0%; (2) the mean average is at least 49%; (3) overcharges reached their zenith in 1891–1945 and have trended downward ever since; (4) 6% of the cartel episodes are zero; (5) median overcharges of international-membership cartels are 38% higher than those of domestic cartels; (6) convicted cartels are on average 19% more effective at raising prices as unpunished cartels; (7) bid-rigging conduct displays 25% lower markups than price-fixing cartels; (8) contemporary cartels targeted by class actions have higher overcharges; and (9) when cartels operate at peak effectiveness, price changes are 60–80% higher than the whole episode. Historical penalty guidelines aimed at optimally deterring cartels are likely to be too low.
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This chapter reconsiders commonly held views on the ownership and management of private property, contrasting capitalist and simple property, particularly in relation to how a…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter reconsiders commonly held views on the ownership and management of private property, contrasting capitalist and simple property, particularly in relation to how a firm shareholder governance model has shaped society. This consideration is motivated by the scale and scope of the modern global crisis, which has combined financial, economic, social and cultural dimensions to produce world disenchantment.
Methodology/approach
By contrasting an exchange value standpoint with a use value perspective, this chapter explicates current conditions in which neither the state nor the market prevail in organising economic activity (i.e. cooperative forms of governance and community-created brand value).
Findings
This chapter offers recommendations related to formalised conditions for collective action and definitions of common guiding principles that can facilitate new expressions of the principles of coordination. Such behaviours can support the development of common resources, which then should lead to a re-appropriation of the world.
Practical implications
It is necessary to think of enterprises outside a company or firm context when reflecting on the end purpose and means of collective, citizen action. From a methodological standpoint, current approaches or studies that view an enterprise as an organisation, without differentiating it from a company, create a deadlock in relation to entrepreneurial collective action. The absence of a legal definition of enterprise reduces understanding and evaluations of its performance to simply the performance by a company. The implicit shift thus facilitates the assimilation of one with the other, in a funnel effect that reduces collective projects to the sole projects of capital providers.
Originality/value
Because forsaking society as it stands is a radical response, this historical moment makes it necessary to revisit the ideals on which modern societies build, including the philosophy of freedom for all. This utopian concept has produced an ideology that is limited by capitalist notions of private property.
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On May 12th the case for the abolition of night baking from the operatives' point of view was placed before the Committee appointed by the Government to investigate the subject…
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On May 12th the case for the abolition of night baking from the operatives' point of view was placed before the Committee appointed by the Government to investigate the subject under the chairmanship of Sir WILLIAM MACKENZIE. MR. BANFIELD, the General Secretary of the Union of Operative Bakers, Confectioners and Allied Workers, said there was a general demand for legislation prohibiting night work. Bakers looked old before their time, and the Chairman of the Richmond Tribunal had stated that no baker passed A1 had ever been before him. Witness urged that new bread was not so important as the health of the night worker, although new bread could be supplied under a system of day work. The only ground for night work was that it was in the interests of certain employers, but he said that 80 per cent. of the employers had enough ovens and plant to carry on a system of day work. He suggested the prohibition of night baking between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., with legal provision for an extension of the prohibited hours at intervals. He added that 90 per cent. of the operative bakers would prefer day work. Continued night work was bad for the health of the baker. The returns showed that the rate of mortality from bronchitis among working bakers was abnormally high. This was due to the constant change from a heated atmosphere to a cooler one. The mortality from phthisis was slightly higher than the average, while the figures for suicide were considerably higher than the average Replying to the Chairman, MR. BANFIELD said that there need be no increase in the price of bread if night baking was prohibited, as any expense which might be occasioned to the employer could come out of the profits the employer now put into his pocket, instead of using it to extend his plant. His experience was that the bulk of the bread was not sold till late in the afternoon. Witness desired the abolition of the order prohibiting the sale of bread less than twelve hours old. He said that if the order was rigidly enforced it would itself solve the problem of night baking. He did not think, however, that there was sufficient justification for continuing the order, which, in his opinion, should be revoked and replaced by an enactment prohibiting night‐baking. The order, he said, was fairly extensively ignored, simply because, in his opinion, the local food committees refused to prosecute, or would not inspect. MR. CANNON, the owner of fifty bakers' shops in working districts of London, declared that the waste of bread resulting from the order prohibiting the sale of bread less than twelve hours old was enormous. The Food Controller in introducing the order, had introduced a new business—the stale bread industry, which consisted in the buying up of stale bread. He was not prepared to say what was done with it but it was not being used as bread. A strike of bakers would be futile as it would simply mean that housewives would bake their own bread, and after a little practice they would do it better than any baker.
William Baumol is best-known as an academic. He was a prodigious researcher and publisher of texts on microeconomic theory, and a highly regarded educator with roles as head of…
Abstract
William Baumol is best-known as an academic. He was a prodigious researcher and publisher of texts on microeconomic theory, and a highly regarded educator with roles as head of the Department of Economics at Princeton University, director of the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics and director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at New York University. Less well-known were his engagements as a corporate consultant, notably for the telecommunications monopoly AT&T. Baumol’s work as an advisor, expert witness and theorist for AT&T spanned three decades from 1966. His relationship with AT&T arguably forms the context within which we can better understand his work on contestability theory, which he developed with a team of economists working for AT&T’s Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1970s. Contestability theory was later deployed as a policy tool to justify industry deregulation and even advocate for monopolies and oligopolies on the ground that they were optimally efficient industry structures if potential competitors faced low barriers of entry. Baumol’s intellectual contribution to contestability theory was arguably influenced by the Chicago school and by AT&T’s drive toward the technological integration of telecommunications. Contestability was a rebellion against economic orthodoxies concerning competition and government regulation, and the status quo within AT&T which opposed market competition on the ground that it threatened the technological integration of the Bell system. The outcome was a revolution in industrial organization that would pave the way for the emergence of platform business models incorporating multi-sided and two-sided markets as exemplified by Amazon and Uber.
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The American trade‐book industry offers a rather unique challenge for the application of theories and principles of competitive strategy. Despite the mergers with and acquisitions…
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The American trade‐book industry offers a rather unique challenge for the application of theories and principles of competitive strategy. Despite the mergers with and acquisitions by publishing and entertainment conglomerates: (a) publishing housing (and their imprints, or divisions) continue to be small; (b) profit margins are low; (c) the synergy that was expected by the mergers into multimedia and entertainment companies has not been achieved; and, (d) the trade‐book industry continues to defy the predictions that electronic and other media will totally absorb and eclipse physical books.