It's remarkable how little is known about the history of "gas and water socialism" which is both the inspiration and the rationale of municipal broadband. The value of a universal system vs. the selective systems we now have (regardless of whether they are selective by price, by financial value to the deliverer, or by logistics) is more than economic. The "socialism" of those extra-economic values - like shared information, instant access, multilingualism, anonymity, and color and age blindedness - is not the political system of socialism, but, rather, the community development. This is the same kind of "socialism" that underlies the Horace Mann argument for the universal "common school," in which an entire community develops shared values and shares each other's access and opinions through shared activities in child rearing.
This is not some "fuzzy liberal" argument. It is much more critical to the kind of community organizing we now see in fundamentalist churches, for example, or in class-bound admissions to colleges or other elites, wherein the community's values are expressed openly and the distinctions between membership and rejection are up front, unmitigated by either affirmative action or claims of elitism. The argument makes "transparent" those restrictions we now presume are "market based" or "economic" in origin, but which are actually much more insidious. The argument also transcends the blather about neo-liberal fiscal fundamentalism, since "market forces" are, with regard to any utility in any community, meaningless. Power and energy, water, education, transportation and communication, have long been both universally available and restricted by cost and selling systems. Municipalities have some substantial advantages in delivering any of them: cheap bonds, some capacity to establish and make transparent certain standards of practice, and an elected public accountability for just some examples. Those advantages can be retained, shared, leased, or regulated to meet public benefits. In Europe, for example, the railroads were constructed by the state - since the state wanted each municipality to have access to a national "grid" - but the rolling stock was private and licensed by the state. So also was much of the US electrical grid. And then, there is the case of the US interstate highway system, which had the dual effect of uniting the country and destroying the earlier publicly and privately financed passenger railroad system, to the great financial benefit of oil and automobile interests. For any utility, construction and management has ALWAYS BEEN a joint public-private venture. The only time one or the other interest predominates is through purchased votes of public bodies, almost always purchased by a private sector beneficiary to destroy a public sector public service. Corruption, whether through the great western US railroad exploitation, or through "privatization" of publicly owned (and sometimes corrupt) utilities, is always very close to the surface. "Reform" is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, just as it was with canals in the 1820's, rails in the 1880's, phones and electricity in the 1900's, auto's in the 1920's, radio in the 1930's, highways in the 1950's, television in the 1950's and 1960's, cable and internet at the end of the century, some of the arguments were technical - "municipalities won't follow the engineering standards of the private sector systems" - and some were political - "municipalities shouldn't undermine private enterprise." The bottom line is much clearer: it's cheaper to do it some ways, and some people make more money other ways. The argument for municipal wifi is cost, usually buttressed by cases of equity and access; the rationale for private monopoly power is greed, usually rationalized by speed of construction or financial incentives to larger markets. Simple case. Joe Beckmann Oekos Foundation -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Meisch Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 8:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [DDN] HR 2726 - "Preserving Innovation in Telecommunications" Jacqueline, I'll take a stab at it from both sides, if you'll indulge me The idea behind the bill, officially speaking, is that it's bad economic policy to have government entities competing directly with private firms. This is true in any market, particularly in ones where the government entity has advantages over private firms. In the case of communications, local governments can regulate the construction of networks, levy taxes on the companies that do so, charge for access to the poles and other public utilities, and so on. On top of that, governments are playing with a large pool of money - taxes - and they can borrow money very easily, whereas private companies risk much more when they invest and therefore are careful not to put money into losing verntures (in theory, of course). Governments, on the other hand, are less reticent to abandon a failing project, since they can continue to throw money at it. Corporate shareholders won't stand for that. There are other, more complex economic arguments that frankly are over my head, but the basic message is that governments have advantages. All of this makes for the case that if governments are allowed to compete directly with private industry, private firms have less incentive to innovate and invest. So the Sessions bill would prevent a government entity from entering a private market. At the same time, however, if the private market fails to address some demand, the bill permits local governments to step in and provide services. Opposition to this idea comes from the school of thought that the market has in fact failed because there are millions of Americans who have yet to adopt broadband Internet use, largely due to price but in part because some areas, typically in hard-to-reach rural America, are not sufficently served by the private sector. Thus, it is the government's duty to step in and provide broadband. The way I see it, there are various levels of support for this view - to some, the absence of basic broadband infrastructure justifies a publicly-financed buildout to underserved areas. To others, the fact that millions of Americans can't afford broadband justifies a public network, offered at a fixed low price, to compete directly with the private sector offerings. Still others argue that local governments offer other basic services (water, electricity, sewer, gas, garbage collection) well enough and therefore they should offer broadband as well - and perhaps cable television and telephone, while we're at it. As far as the Sessions bill goes, the key bit of news has been that the Congressman has strong ties to SBC, a telephone company that would gain from not having to fight with every municipality in its region. That's disappointing, since I actually think the bill isn't terrible - it's far less onerous than some of the laws that state legislatures have passed in the last 12 months. I hope this is marginally helpful. I've probably omitted a few arguments and details on either side, but I'd love to get some discussion going on this if people are jazzed about it. Cheers, Charlie Meisch [EMAIL PROTECTED] <br><br><br>----Original Message Follows----<br>From: Jacqueline Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]><br>Reply-To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group<[EMAIL PROTECTED]><br>To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group<[EMAIL PROTECTED]><br>Subject: Re: [DDN] HR 2726 - "Preserving Innovation in Telecommunications"<br>Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:56:31 +0200<br><br>I absolutely can't understand how the US Congress can even think to<br>propose a law like this, preventing municipalities from serving their<br>taxpaying constituents! Is this the greatest democracy in the world in<br>action? Can a US citizen try to explain to those of us not from the<br>US?<br>Jacqueline<br><br>On 6/14/05, Bob J <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:<br> ><br> ><br> > <snip><br> > Susan,<br> > Thank you for pointing this latest attempt by telcoms<br> > to preserve the duopoly they currently enjoy.<br> > I believe this is very much DDN related, and an example<br> > of how corporate greed, (i.e, no amount of profit is ever<br> > enough), overides any thoughts of common access or public<br> > interest.<br> > Bob Johnson<br> > PAI, Inc.<br> ><br> > http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/<br> ><br> > http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.2726:<br> ><br> > http://www.rense.com/general66/dk.htm<br> ><br> ><br> > Susan<br> ><br> > --<br> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br> > Silvergate Consulting<br> > San Diego CA<br> > 619 . 316 . 6022<br> > _______________________________________________<br> > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list<br> > [email protected]<br> > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide<br> > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.<br> ><br> > _______________________________________________<br> > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list<br> > [email protected]<br> > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide<br> > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.<br> ><br><br><br>--<br>______________________<br>Jacqueline Morris<br>www.carnivalondenet.com<br>T&T Music and videos online<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>DIGITALDIVI DE mailing list<br>[email protected]<br>http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/list info/digitaldivide<br>To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.<br> _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
