Worst LA Times Op/Ed...Ever

Statist Randall Rothenberg tries to claim YouTube as a Marxist innovation in a silly Op/Ed in today's LA Times.

YouTube popularity is a triumph of capitalism not Marxism. The tools for a video sharing site have existed for some time. The high-speed connections, cheap storage space, advances in technology were all the natural advances of profit focused business. So why does Randall Rothberg think that that Marxism has something to do with it? A poor understanding of economics is my guess:

WHETHER by kings or capitalists, economic development since the dawn of homo economicus has depended on mobilizing resources on an increasingly mass scale, with all others (entrepreneurs and small businesses in particular) denied access. In scarcity and limits lay profits.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics can demolish this statement and here is my attempt: Who determines whether a business succeeds or fails? Who are the disloyal people whose opinions and desires change on a whim but still demand the best? Who are the ones that ruthlessly seek and demand the lowest price and the highest quality? It’s the consumer.

These sovereign, self-interested people spend their money on things that provide utility and nothing that doesn’t. An entrepreneur can make himself rich if he is able to anticipate their demands and will fail if he is wrong. Profits in scarcity and limits exist only in State controlled markets. An entrepreneur can only profit if he provides something of value to the consumer. In a free market society the consumer is always in control.

YouTube’s improvement on existing tools gave anyone the chance to make and share films, something that would have previously been extremely expensive and difficult. What was only a luxury available only to the rich is now available to all.The collectivist mindset doesn’t allow for entrepreneurship because advancement and innovation cause the collective to lose control. Make no mistake, YouTube is an accomplishment of capitalism.