[11876] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Information and Liberty
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gary Bolles (via RadioMail))
Fri Apr 22 15:38:11 1994
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:27:26 PDT
From: Gary Bolles (via RadioMail) <gbolles@radiomail.net>
Reply-To: gbolles@nwc.com
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
To: frezza@radiomail.net
//Ah, Bill. There's no <sigh> heavy enough to communicate across the ether.//
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.
//To quote Mr. R's rather numb successor, "If it walks like a duck..."
Emasculating anti-trust laws and cutting DOJ lawyers off at the knees sound
exactly like pouring the foundation of a wild wild market to me.//
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.
//Sorry, kemosabe. Large corporations will retain their distributed employees
simply because they have the unlimited resources to make them feel warm and
loved, no matter where they choose to live. F'rexample, I have a
highly-professional staff in seven states and (soon) two countries, a group I
see assembled maybe 3-4 times a year. Sure, they could each go to work for some
struggling virtucorps, but will they get what we can pay in salary and
benefits? Not close.//
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.
//Mmm, fatal error here. It's like pointing to Southern California's sunshine
and saying that's why people are leaving, forgetting little details like some
minor earth movement. These corporations are dying or dead because of the
coming of cyberspace? Puh-lease.//
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.
//Again, I'm only seeing silly in the syllogism. Pac Bell hired half a town in
the middle of nowhere, Idaho, to be a data entry workgroup, paying big city
wages for a Podunk-ville equivalent. Those people are going to leave the nest
because they think big is bad? No way.//
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.
//Read your paper again. The mergers will continue: only the financial
instruments will change. The fracturing of the junk bond market simply forced
the mergerers to look elsewhere for capital.//
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.
//Dominated? No. Strongly influenced by? Once they use both hands to find their
collective butts, possibly. Say I'm Joe Customer, and I can buy my
phone/cable/net access for one cheap monthly bill from Megacorp, or lots of
separate expensive bills from little guys. And I choose...?//
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.
//I'm with you right up to the complete excision of state and economy. I can't
see distributed management alone working any better than completely centralized
management.//
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.
//Still sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me - why fix it, just take the
reins and put them in the hands of business, *they'll* know what to do with all
that power. *They* won't be corrupted. However, you and Mark both seem to be
quoting from the same book; I'll have to read this manifesto before the next
salvo.//
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!
//"Operating on the net..." So our net definition now includes private
communications? My mother's "on the net" when she calls my Aunt Lil?//
You typed all this on that little bitty keyboard? Jeez, I'm glad you don't have
a laptop...//
