Libertarians and Open Networks

by publius

Mark Thompson had a thoughtful response to my longer post on the Comcast case and the brief.  It's worth reading the whole thing, but I had a few thoughts and comments.

First, I think libertarians like Mark should be siding with the FCC—in this case, siding with the government agency best maximizes liberty.

I’m not exactly an expert on the tenets of modern libertarianism.  I assume, though, that reduced government intrusion is a means to an end rather than an end unto itself.  That is, maximizing liberty is the ultimate goal, and limiting government is—generally speaking—the way to achieve that end.  (I’m assuming most libertarians are utilitarians—my argument doesn’t work if you think government action is inherently unfair).

In the world of Internet access, though, this general principle doesn’t work.  Libertarians are going to have to pick their poison.  Either the government must impose some basic foundational regulations upon the physical network provider, or the network provider will impose its own restrictions on the application layer (content providers, innovators, etc.).  Indeed, if Comcast wins, its market-distorting interventions are just the tip of the iceberg to come.

So pick your poison—the government or Comcast.

To me, this isn’t a remotely close question.  Government action in this context furthers the goals of libertarianism many times over by providing the foundation for a nearly infinite number of free markets that have extremely low entry costs and are perpetually contestable.  In this respect, open networks are analogous to basic foundational property rights that (I assume) most libertarians concede are necessary to market freedom.

I also want to respond to a couple of Mark’s more specific points about the broadband “duopoly.”  He writes that we should try to “remove the regulations that ensure and enforce the duopoly.”  That certainly couldn’t hurt—my recommendations would be to provide strong protections for muni broadband and to buy out broadcasters’ spectrum.

But the duopoly (at the physical layer) has deeper structural causes that go beyond regulation.   It’s impossible to construct entirely new networks from scratch—there are various barriers to entry, such as enormous fixed sunk costs coupled with extremely low marginal operating costs.  In fact, the networks we use today—telephone and cable networks—were publicly subsidized monopoly networks that became broadband networks by accident.  It's not something we can repeat today.

For the foreseeable future, then, cable and phone are all we got.  Wireless is nowhere close to competing as a substitute service, and probably never will be.

For this same reason, I tend to be very skeptical of arguments that rely on “new networks” emerging.  If they were economically rational to build, we’d see them.  But they’re not, so we haven’t.  More broadly, these arguments tend to ignore the massive structural barriers to entry that exist even without incumbent-protecting regulations.

Comments

[evilrooster]

Slarti,

I think that one's important enough to stand up say something about, whether or not one's a mod. I wish I'd done so sooner, just as a human being that shares the conversation with others, entirely aside from the merits of formal debate.

And I really do think that Irrumator needs to address this matter. Just as another human being sharing the conversation. Because at the moment, there's something very wrong between him and the community, and that comment is a big part of it.

Just because it happened before the new regime doesn't mean it doesn't have repercussions into how everyone sees him now.

[Jesurgislac]

particularly given that we want to encourage conservative commenters to feel welcome.

This really effin' annoys me, by the way.

I have never called Marty, Brett Bellmore, blogbudsman, mckinneytexas... I lose track. I'm not in the habit of calling conservative commenters trolls.

I identified Jay Jerome as a troll because he was regularly trolling discussions here. Other regular commenters were calling him out for his behavior, too. No front-page poster was doing an effin' thing about it.

I don't think I was even the first person here to identify Irrumator as a troll.

Yet somehow, the problem has morphed into me calling them trolls, and you're claiming that I'm not "making conservative commenters feel welcome"? If I were a conservative commenter here, and found you had just lazily identified them all with Jay Jerome and Irrumator, I'd be pretty damn pissed. I have my issues with (for example) Brett Bellmore, but I do not consider him a troll.

[Irrumator]

Jesurgislac,

It's really funny how you're so quick to call others trolls. Look in the mirror. Slarti just called you out for trolling in this thread with your 22,000 comment. But instead of defending yourself, you go on the offense against me, when I wasn't even participating in this thread.

I were actually a troll, I'd take a page from your book and hide my trolling with obstreperous accusations against others.

[matttbastard]

What Jes said. This is a farce.

[hix]

Doesnt the word libertarian already imply he is far right liberal, thus mainyl concerned with the amounth of liberty of big capital owners. Otherwise he would be just liberal. From the US basis, most debated increases in government do increase liberty. Its just that libertarians by definition hardly care about that thype of libery.