Re: Evil monopolists and the future of the internet

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In sci.econ, sinister
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on Thu, 9 Feb 2006 18:04:48 -0500
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"The Ghost In The Machine" <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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In sci.econ, sinister
<sinister@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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on Wed, 8 Feb 2006 10:17:31 -0500
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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester

"The End of the Internet?" by Jeff Chester

First 'graph:
"The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are
crafting an alarming set of strategies that would
transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet
of today to a privately run and branded service that
would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online."


It costs money to move those electrons, after all. How
much, I'm not sure, but ideally we'd be able to establish
a standardized number of joules or watts per terabyte or
terabyte/second, and charge users appropriately.

But you miss the point entirely.

The big bandwidth oligarchs aren't attempting to recover cost
and realize a reasonable profit. Rather, they're trying to
collect economic rent.

If they want to charge per bandwidth, that's fine. But if you
actually read the article, that's not what they want to do.

No, and that's not what anyone would *want* to do; the
system is "charge what the market will bear". In other
words, gouging is standard policy. Of course one man's
gouging is another's fair market value, making things a
bit ugly; one hopes the judges are in fact impartial, but
there's only one real impartial judge hypothesized, and
I've not heard from Him/Her/It/They lately... :-)

There is a consistent standard to apply: economic rents should not be
collected, and to the extent they are collected, they should be taxed away.

So, no, in this case it's quite clear: it's not "fair market value," but
rather gouging.

How one deals with this in the absence of competition, I
for one don't know.

You've never heard of "regulated monopolies"? Or "government regulations"?
Such as ones Congress is considering on this very issue, at this very
moment?


This is, of course, the correct approach. There are 2 actual
problems.

1. If there are no economic rents to collect then there will
be no :incentive" for the, so-called, "capitalist" to create
and maintain the necessary infrastructure.

Well, on this particular issue, the cable and phone companies seem to be doing
pretty well with whatever monopoly rent they're already collecting. Don't know
how good the return on equity is, but they seem to be investing a lot.

Don't see why that wouldn't continue if the US Congress passed an internet
neutrality law.

2. The current payola form of government in the USA
almost guarantees that there will be untaxed economic
rent and that this rent will be distributed to the owners
and the management of the monopolistic order.

I am of the opinion that the only solution to this problem
is _real_ representation of the common people of
the nation in our House of Representatives. Without
such representation the regulators will be
controlled by those they are supposed to be
regulating:

I disagree, as I've said before. Look at local governments. Those elected
officials represent many fewer people than federal congresscritters do, but
they're completely in the pockets of developers and landowners.

I do not recall your stating this objection in the past but I will
tend to it now in any case.

You confuse the national with the local here: The local Boss Hog
is very concerned about local city council, the mayor, the governor,
and even the Senators. But he will not be wasting his time on
a representative that has as little power as 1 out of 870, or 1
out of 1740 voting members of the distant House of Representatives.

If Boss Hog showers a local candidate in campaign funds (which
would be a waste of funds) the smallness of the district (the
more House members the smaller the district size) allows the
honest challenger to unseat the dishonest incumbent because
the NEED for a massive chest of campaign funds is diminished
as the district size shrinks. Imagine a district size of 10K people
so as to make the point. An honest candidate could go door to
door showing the voters the voting record of the incumbent
and explaining why that voting record was in direct contradiction
of the best interest of the voters. No mass media Swift Boat
crap is going to work in that small a constituency because the
challenger does not need big bucks to communicate with
the voters.

There are degrees of democracy. It is not yes or no or
black and white. Two things determine the degree of
democracy:

1. The term of office or, "how long do we have to put up
with this lying sack of crap?".

2. How many people must be made aware of the mistakes
or intentional offenses of the current representative.

These "theories" are like the "theory of gravity". They just are
not really subject to any serious debate.


http://GreaterVoice.org/---------------------------------------------------
We submit that there is no tax or monetary "silver bullet" that can be fired
at the heart of despotism, and aristocracy that will, in fact, create and
maintain a steady march toward this goal of enriching the society as a whole,
toward the enrichment of the people. Other than maintaining a well informed
and empowered body truly representing the general citizenry, a body empowered
by the people to prevent the encroachment of aristocracy and nationalism,
there is no escape from economic despotism and the policies that will
ultimately favor an aristocratic minority at the expense of the many.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org


.

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