[11837] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Information and Liberty
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Frezza (via RadioMail))
Thu Apr 21 19:29:44 1994
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 10:10:20 PDT
From: Bill Frezza (via RadioMail) <frezza@radiomail.net>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, stahlman@radiomail.net, brodsky@radiomail.net,
opfer@radiomail.net, Sam_Boyle@mcimail.com, media15@radiomail.net,
dbuck@world.std.com, aa@wired.com, jswatz@well.sf.ca.us,
4091174@mcimail.com, kevin@wired.com, louis@wired.com,
mfeshbach@radiomail.net
To: gbolles@nwc.com
Gary,
Where to begin taking you apart? Let's just do it in order. Readers not
interested in ideological debate on the Information Revolution and the role
of the nation-state can delete now with my apologies for filling your in box.
Part 1 of 2
You state: <>
<Bill, you sound positively Reaganesque.>
Coming from a magazine editor I'm not surprised that you make this error.
Let me correct it. Ronald Reagan was no friend of liberty. He was a mainstream
statist/collectivist masquerading as a supporter of the free market. It is
a tragedy that he was mistakenly identifed as an ideological defender
of capitalism. In fact, the moral premises upon which he operated
were hardly distinguishable from those of his supposed adversary Tip O'Neil.
They merely served different power groups.
<Yes, let's get the government out of
the faces of all of those poor struggling virtual corporations yearning to be
free.>
Here you are correct.
<Let's unshackle the fetters of multinationals who each already have
the gathered might to move their physical goods around in ways most advantageous to
avoid local tariffs, and will soon have the same freedom with their information
resources. And while we're at it, let's make sure we remove enough of the
checks and balances so that we can encourage the really-really-big-is-better
merger/LBO feeding frenzy that characterized the 80's so we can bake
lots more megamultinationals.>
Here is where you go far astray. The mega-corporations, as
economic/political entities, will NOT be made stronger by the Information
Revolution. Quite the contrary, they will be de-fanged. They will be
outflanked. They will melt down in a brain drain of historic proportions
as the most productive of their employees flee, freed from the
physical constraints that keep them bound to their employers, and the
least productive of their employees hang on for dear life bringing their
employers down with them.
It is happening already. Look around you. Is total employment among the
Fortune 500 growing or shrinking? Witness the demise of Wang, the
faltering of IBM, and the impending death of DEC. It happened first in
the computer industry but it will happen elsewhere as well.
Where is the real value in the design, production, and marketing of an
automobile? How much of this could be done on the net, with production
specs, parts orders, customer specific design information all being modemed
to job-shop just-in-time factories operated in low wage labor markets
that have no mandated health care benefits? How long do you think it
will be before someone founds a fabless automobile company? This company
will grow strong by feeding off the carcass of the mismanaged
union-crippled mega-corporations that build cars now. Local shuttered
factories and their frightened municipal governments will clamor
for the work on any terms rather than see it go to Mexico. Free trade is
a powerful motivator.
The mega-merger frenzy of the 80's was the last hurrah of the old guard,
stimulated by the bizarre economic distortions fostered by Reagonomics.
(Witness the Savings & Loan fiasco caused by the inept government
operation of an insurance pool.) We are still suffering from the hangover
but the front page shennanigans of the 80's have nothing to do with what
really matters. The PC industry was born. The semiconductor industry
came of age. The telecomunications industry took its first steps on
the road to freedom. The Internet emerged. All of these ingredients
came together in an explosive mixture. These will ultimately be judged
the significant events of the decade.
Anyone who really believes that the information revolution will be
dominated by the Barry-Diller-John-Malone-TCI-Time
Warner-bigger-is-better axis is a fool. This is a bogeyman that has been
created by the Clintonites and their public advocate running dogs to
justify one last grasp for power by
the government.
<Sure, we'll have some upheaval, but in the end it will all
settle down, our newly de-toothed government will slide into decrepitude,
and the superorgs that will now consider the U.S. a Sterlingian data haven will,
thank God and deregulation, control their own destinies.>
Wrong again. Anarcho-capitalism doesn't work. Sterling's frightening scenarios
will never happen.
The State has an absolutely vital non-economic role to play and we
MUST strive to bring this about or face calamity. The State must remain
the final arbiter of justice. It must enforce the sanctity of contracts.
It must create and maintain the conditions for freedom and peace
by protecting its citizens from acts of force or fraud perpetrated by outlaw
individuals, corporations, or foreign
powers. It must have a constitutionaly
granted and limited monoploy on the use of force. But not force to be applied as it has been in the twentieth century
welfare-warfare state, force that ever grows and expands hungry for
more and more power. No, this force must be contained. To do this true
things of value must be kept out of its reach. And this, my friend, can finally
happen on the net.
<Separation of state and economy was indeed radical, but it was also inevitable.
The surgical separation of church and state became necessary because their
respective values - moral guidance versus enlightened self-determination of
resource usage - were in the long run antithetical, and because enough people
realized that in an era of theological complexity there could no longer be a
single "church" with a single set of moral guiding principles. Church grumbles
now and then, but short of Armageddon the state should be able to resist major
encroachment.>
You got off to a good start here but failed to complete your analogy.
The same conflict of moral values exists between the state and the
economy. Go read "Systems of Survival" by Jane Jacobs. A surgical separation
of State and Economy will be required because in the long run and with our
help the people will come to understand that in an era of economic complexity
there can no longer be a single monetary and economic guiding power,
particularly one left in the hands of a corrupt and corrupting government.
It is happening already. Worldwide currency traders operating on the
net are rendering sovereign monetary authorities impotent. For the first
time in history a society has been saved from the ultimate and inevitable
collapse of fiat money by the power of information!
TO BE CONTINUED (The screen buffer on my HP 100 is full)
