Bill Gates and I Have the Same Property Essay

The government does not have the freedom to interfere into the property of an owner and the owner’s right to exercise power on the property. This statement may be evaluated with the following example. An anti-trust action was passed against Microsoft Corporation by the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department who challenged that the company cannot make it mandatory on customers to install the internet browser of Microsoft while installing the Microsoft 95 operating system. The Government also upheld the notion that it is not necessary for consumers to use one product of a company simultaneously when another product is installed. The court ordered the separation of Microsoft 95 and Internet explorer. In continuation to this verdict, the Assistant Attorney General further demanded the unusual freedom to scrutinise all future products of Microsoft Corporation to check their marketing strategy. Microsoft retaliated that if additional facilities in the computer indicate unfair trade practice, the manufacture of computer itself would be like posing threat to the manufacturers of products like calculator, typewriter and the like. Though the Assistant Attorney General justified that the anti trust motion is aimed to stimulate innovation and competition there were several obstacles to substantiate its stand to stop Microsoft from gaining market control (Labaton, 1997). According to Bill Gates, the separation of the operating system and the browser would mean producing products with lesser value and reducing the demand for the operating system in the market despite enhancing the quality (Thibodeau, 2008). In the Second Treatise of Government, John Locke justifies that man can have a right on property based on the amount of work he has done to transform the resources provided by God. The amount of work done by a person enables him to partition the common resources provided by God and own a part of it by himself. Thus private ownership of property is related to the amount of work done by man. The spoilage proviso limits the amount of resources a man can reserve when the resource is wasted and the sufficiency proviso limits the amount of resources to be owned and the balance to be left with the nature for others. And when there are no more resources available, people are required to work on the available resources for sustenance. According to Locke, when individuals own resources or land, they take better care of it rather than when the land is not owned by anyone. When land is owned the productivity is estimated a ten times its actual value and it will pave way for the betterment of life. Here labor is given more importance than on resources. When a person works on a resource it is automatically transformed into the workers property. It is the duty of the government to protect the right of a person towards a property (Meinhardt, 2007). James Madison has defined the ownership and rights to use a property. He has stated that when a person has a right to property, it is equal to having a property in his own rights. Hence the government’s interference into the affairs of a property or business owned by an individual when the business is meant for public use is not fair. Therefore the government should make it clear that the property owned by a person or corporate may be put into full use according to the wish of the owner if the use of the property adds values and the deletion of certain facilities reduce the value of the property. When certain use of a property is taken away by legal and governmental restrictions, the owner cannot exercise his fundamental freedom to exercise his right on the property (Pilon, 1995). In conclusion, governments do not have the authority to interfere into the rights of a property owner if the owner is a multi billionaire or a common person. Reference Labaton, S. December 22, 1997. Bill Gates, Meet Your Adversary, the Antitrust Chief. Available: http://query. nytimes. com/gst/fullpage. html? res=9D04E7DF143EF931A15751C1A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1. Accessed on September 8, 2008 Meinhardt, E. F. May 22, 2007. Critical Analysis of John Locke’s theory on Property Rights. Available http://www. scribd. com/doc/93360/John-Locke-on-Property-Rights. Accessed on September 8, 2008. Pilon, R. February 10, 1995. Protecting Private Property Rights from Regulatory Takings. Breathe New Life Into the Takings Clause. Available: http://www. cato. org/testimony/ct-pi210. html. Accessed on September 8, 2008. Thibodeau, P. June 30, 2008. For Bill Gates, antitrust fight was a personal crucible. http://www. thestandard. com/news/2008/06/30/bill-gates-antitrust-fight-was-personal-crucible? page=0%2C1. Accessed on September 8, 2008.