[118237] in Cypherpunks
FC: Jerry Pournelle responds to "Would the Feds regulate the Net?"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Wed Sep 22 15:12:36 1999
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Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:57:04 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:42:55 -0400
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Jerry Pournelle responds to "Would the Feds regulate the Net?"
Sender: owner-politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Reply-To: declan@well.com
>From: "Jerry Pournelle" <jerryp@jerrypournelle.com>
>To: <declan@well.com>
>Subject: RE: Would the US Government regulate the Net? (by R. Solomon)
>Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 12:26:28 -0700
>
>The purpose of government is to hire and pay government workers, as many as
>possible and as much as possible. Of course the government will "regulate"
>the Net if given the chance. It will create ever so many government jobs.
>
>As to anti-trust, most of the time by the time it happens it isn't needed.
>This doesn't mean that the threat ought not be there. David McCord Wright
>even attributed the failure of capitalism to follow Marx's predictions to
>anti-trust. Perhaps he was right. He was pretty sharp about a lot of things.
>
>But a Adam Smith observed, two successful capitalists can't get together
>without discussing how they can use government to restrict competition by
>raising the barrier to entry of newcomers to their business. Which most
>regulation does nicely. Raise the barrier through regulation and it's not
>anti-trust, it's somehow benign...
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From: owner-politech@vorlon.mit.edu [mailto:owner-politech@vorlon.mit.edu]
>On Behalf Of Declan McCullagh
>Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 10:57 AM
>To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
>Cc: rsolomon@dsl.cis.upenn.edu
>Subject: FC: Would the US Government regulate the Net? (by R. Solomon)
>
>[Forwarded via Dave Farber]
>
>I agree and disagree with the author, Richard Solomon. I agree, of course,
>that
>governments are trying to regulate the Net. The reasons are well-known:
>Taxation, law enforcement demands, stability, "public interest," and so on.
[...]
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
