CrunchGear vs. the Tea Party on Net Neutrality

Business, Corporatism, Nanny Statism, Technology, Vulgar Politics
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Yesterday, in All Your Tubes Are Belong to Googlizon, I blogged about the Google-Verizon proposal for regulating the internet and why libertarians should oppose both it and any net neutrality laws and regulations. Today, I came across a post on CrunchGear, a tech and gadgets site, by Nicholas Deleon, that criticizes the Tea Party for opposing net neutrality on the basis that it will violate the right of ISPs to free speech. I left a comment on his post, but I’ll reproduce it here.

I’m a libertarian, not a Tea Partier, but I’ll take a stab at explaining this.

Both free markets and the right to free speech are based on the right to private property. Net neutrality, insofar as it involves regulation, violates private property rights. That said, not every violation of the right to property is a violation of the right to free speech.

“But really, to expect the ISPs to do “right” by you is laughable. If it could, Comcast and the nation’s ISPs would offer 1 mbps (down, mind you) and call that SUPER FAST INTERNET, then charge you $100 per month for the privilege of using it.”

If they could? Maybe. Maybe not. But in a free market, they could not. Restrict competition through regulations, monopoly franchises, and whatnot, and then maybe they could.

“But to oppose Net Neutrality in order to defend the free speech of ISPs is pretty laughable.”

Umm… I don’t see in the letter where they defend the free speech of ISPs. I don’t see it in the quoted soundbite either.1 More likely the speaker was concerned about the free speech of users who could be prevented by net neutrality regulations from purchasing services that otherwise might have been available, services they could have used to express themselves more effectively.

In any case, the fundamental reason to oppose net neutrality laws or regulations is that they constitute a violation of property rights.

Then I realized I had made a small mistake, so I left a second comment:

Okay, I see that in the linked article on Radtke’s quote, the reporter writes:

“The free-speech objection to net neutrality has also gained some ground recently. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and AT&T began citing First Amendment objections to net neutrality in public discussions and in filings with the FCC this year.

“The free-speech argument holds that, by interfering with how phone and cable companies deliver Internet traffic, the government would be thwarting the free-speech rights of providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.”

This is the reporter’s interpretation, but let’s say it’s accurate. Is it not possible to imagine how net neutrality regulations could interfere with even the free speech of ISPs? And as “browse” at 1:58 pm UTC pointed out:

“The EFF has some great pieces on Net Neutrality. One of the issues is the Trojan Horse issue: whereby a more activist commissioner could abuse powers won in the aims of Net Neutrality to stifle free expression online. Even if they current FCC has no inclinations to regulate the Internet beyond Net Neutrality, regimes do change pretty frequently, and agendas change with them. If you look at it from that perspective, the argument you quoted above sounds a bit less crazy.”

In any case, as I mentioned in my previous comment, the fundamental reason to oppose net neutrality laws and regulations isn’t free speech but private property.

To wrap things up: That Nicholas finds the Tea Party’s free speech argument so laughable on its face betrays a leftist anti-corporate bias. Corporations are often not the good guys, such as when they seek government protection from competition. But at least corporations are not intrinsically evil. To turn to government as our savior, when it is government that is the primary enemy and source of man-made problems in the world, now that’s more than slightly misguided. In any event, Nicholas hardly gives the Tea Party a fair shake, focusing on their free speech argument as he does and not even bothering to give that a charitable interpretation or serious counterargument.

Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP.

  1. Jaime Radtke, chairwoman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation, said, “I think the clearest thing is it’s an affront to free speech and free markets.” ↩

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All Your Tubes Are Belong to Googlizon

(Austrian) Economics, Business, Corporatism, Democracy, Nanny Statism, Technology, Vulgar Politics
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Googlizon with Chrome eye beam What you say!!!1

There has been a lot wailing and gnashing of teeth recently over a joint announcement by Google and Verizon of a legislative-framework proposal they’ve been working on.

Now, I’ve seen this variously referred to as a backroom deal or pact, a secret treaty, or a set of regulations Google and Verizon are imposing on the internet. The FCC is shamefully abdicating its responsibility to regulate the internet! Nevermind that the D.C. Circuit court determined recently in the Comcast case that the FCC has no such regulatory authority over broadband internet; hence, the calls to disastrously reclassify broadband internet access in order to place it under the same regulatory rules as regular telephone service. Some are even intimating that Google and Verizon are trying to “own” the internet. Net neutrality activists are up in arms about this proposal, viciously attacking Google for selling out and reversing its longstanding defense of net neutrality, and calling for people to stage a silly boycott of Google products and services. If you don’t join the herd, you get labeled a Google-Verizon apologist or it is insinuated that you are on their payroll (see comments on the CNET articles linked below, for example).

So what should libertarians make of all this?

…

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  1. Confused by this sentence and the title? The title is a mash-up of a few geeky internet memes. Know your meme, and also check out this Wikipedia article and this YouTube video. ↩

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A Government Program Which Works?

Business, Finance, Nanny Statism
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Apparently 13.2% of you have some of these in your wallet.

Is it possible? Has free-market anarchist and Austrian School Economist Michael Barnett finally discovered a government program which appears to be achieving its stated goals? Yes, my friends, I think I actually may have done just that. Now look, I understand that correlation does not imply causation, but I think there’s a strong case to be made here. I’m talking, of course, about the multitude of state and federal outreach efforts over the last two years to spread awareness of and encourage participation in Food Stamps Programs. Record numbers of Americans are receiving food stamp assistance now, more than ever before. Illinois, Oregon, Florida, and Idaho are just four of many US states which have never had so many people dependent on government to feed them. I wanted to make a play on the words “superpower” and “soup lines” (souperlines? souperpower?) to describe America’s new position in the world, but my joke writers aren’t as good as Jay Leno’s.

The world's only souperpower? See, it just doesn't work.

Specifically, according to the US Department of Agriculture 40.8 million Americans are recipients of “supplemental nutrition assistance.” Subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April. Participation has set records for 18 straight months. Well, there’s an economy in recovery! I think a little perspective is in order.

Suppose we created a new country out of every recipient of government food assistance programs in the US and named it The Stiglitzian Commonwealth of Krugmania. This new Commonwealth would be tied with Kenya as the 32nd most populous country. It would have more citizens than (in no order) Argentina, Sudan, Poland, Iraq, Venezuela, and Malaysia, just to name a few. It would have twice or more as many citizens as Chile, Niger, Netherlands, Cameroon, Angola, Cambodia, and Kazakhstan just to name a handful of the more than 160 countries which would fall into this category. But what about America’s Neighbor-to-the North? The United States has 6.5 million more people relying on food stamps than Canada has people period. My first instinct is to call that hilarious, but as that comparison sinks in, it’s rather revolting. This must be the economic recovery I kept hearing about.

Don’t despair, people. Let’s not forget the silver lining I launched this post with: we may just have discovered a government program which achieves its stated goals. That’s something, I guess.

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Greedy Businessman Does More For Environment Than Environmentalists

(Austrian) Economics, Business, Environment, Technology
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Over at Forbes.com, Reihan Salam had something rather unexpected but very welcome to say about the CEO of a major corporation:

That the success of the Kindle is good news for Amazon should go without saying. But it represents a remarkable environmental advance as well. The publishing industry in the U.S. felled roughly 125 million trees and generated vast amounts of wastewater. And, of course, physical books have to be transported by trucks, which generate carbon emissions, exacerbate congestion, increase traffic fatalities and cause wear-and-tear on already overburdened roads. One assumes that Bezos didn’t have the environment foremost in mind when he pushed the Kindle concept forward, yet he’s arguably done more to fight climate change by threatening hardcovers and paperbacks with extinction than any number of environmental activists.

Salam goes on to argue that Amazon will ‘win the internet’ through the Kindle and its rapidly growing ebook sales. I don’t know about that. What does it mean to ‘win the internet’? He only considers Facebook as a rival. What about Google? Android and ChromeOS are poised to dominate the mobile phone and tablet pc markets, putting Google into direct competition with the Kindle. Then there’s Google Search, Books, Voice, Gmail, Docs, Maps, Chrome browser, TV, and so on and so forth.

But bravo to Salam for daring to recognize in public the (probably unintended) positive environmental externalities of business decisions and technological innovation driven by profit-seeking amidst market competition — indeed, for daring to rank them on par with or above that of ‘altruistic’ environmental activists.

Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP.

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How one should *not* write a FAQ (Capitalism.org)

Anti-Statism, Business, Libertarian Theory, Private Security & Law, War
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On the Capitalism.org FAQ we find this jewel of an answer:

Why is “anarcho-capitalism” a contradiction in terms?

Those who attempt to combine anarchism with capitalism, make the error of confusing the peaceful form of competition of capitalism — trade, ideas, and dollars — with the brutal “jungle” form of competition of anarchism — brutality, whims, and bombs.

Have you ever thought what happens when one ‘corporate protection agency’ disagrees with another? By what method do they solve their dispute? They do it by competition not with dollars, but with guns. They seek to solve their dispute by resorting to force against each other, i.e., a perpetual state of civil war. Under such a system, which gang wins? The one that is the most brutal.

Ok let us add the precision it lacks to this sloppy argument. …

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