Net Neutrality, Betraying the New Economy, and the Corruption of Politics

A great little video introduction to the Net Neutrality issue.

Imagine if after the interstate highway system were built, the automakers asked congress to divy it up among them, so that you could only drive on a Ford-owned road in a Ford, or you would have to pay a higher toll for non-Ford driving on that section. The impact on the emerging national economic life made possible by the new communication links provided by the system would have been effectively destroyed, even though the automakers would have benefited greatly in the short-term.

This is analogous to the sort of sabotage the incumbent Internet access companies wish the Congress to wreak upon the emerging Internet economy. The want to throw up barriers to efficient creative change which is the heart of capitalism’s power. They want to throw up barriers for their own narrow benefit that will prevent the growth of new businesses that will be the engines of tommorrow’s economy. In short, they want to kill the goose who is laying the golden eggs because they want to cook and eat it.

I would normally dismiss the possibility that any Congress, Republican or Democrat controlled, would be stupid enough to agree to such harebrained scheme. But the depth of the corruption of the democratic process by special interest lobbying and campaign contributions has reached such a pitch as to drown out the reasonable voice of the public interest. Without the massive infusion of lobbying millions from the Internet incumbents, this scheme would have never even been considered. Such self-interested rent-seeking at the expense of society is one of the very good reasons why America need publicly financed campaigns.

Some have pointed out that such a method of funding can empower fringe opinions that would not otherwise be able to raise enough funds to win elections, pointing to the gains that extreme right candidates have made in Arizona using Clean Elections, even as those same candidates assail the program. The reason they attack it even as they use it, is the right wing is well organized and has been first to systematically exploit the system to press their agenda.

They will not be the last. Progressive ideas and candidates will follow as people from this faction, currently marginalized even in their own party, become more organized, experienced, and able to frame appeals to voters. The pendulum swing right first as a result of Clean Elections, but it won’t stay there. Like any major change in the methods of government, the ultimate results will not play out fully for a considerable period of time. I remain convinced that moderate and progressive views will get more exposure and more support at the polls when established wealth is no longer so greatly priviledged in our electoral system.