I just came across an interesting article on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4700430.stm
"Is it time to let internet companies provide premium access to paying
websites and services? No, says technology commentator Bill Thompson.
....
Even those who remember that the net emerged from a publicly-funded
attempt to build a high-speed data network choose to claim that the days
of subsidy are now over and that only deregulation can offer real
benefits, both to companies and to the wider society.
For them, any attempt to restrict the telephone companies' freedom to
offer preferential service is tantamount to state socialism and one step
away from a communist revolution.
Of course they are wrong, and badly so.
I'm a market socialist, and I believe that regulated markets are the
best way to create social value. I have also been using the net since
1985 and I have seen it evolve and grow thanks to the balance between
regulation and market forces. That balance has to be maintained.
Social justice is best served by ensuring that public utilities, of
which the network is surely one, are regulated in the public interest.
Markets fail, and they do so in ways that any humane society must
address. Ensuring that network access is available to all and that the
network itself carries all lawful traffic is the only way forward.
We must just hope that the US government recognises that this is the
case, and sets a good example to the rest of the world."
I think that sounds right: "market socialism". It is analogous, on the
adult level,
to what D.W. Winnicott argued for at the child-developmental level ("The
Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment"), in his essay
"The Capacity to be Alone", where he described the environment which
facilitates the maturation of the individual: Free space to do what one
wants, but knowing that, if things go badly, mother is nearby to help,
as opposed to either: (1) The stultifying mother who intrudes [AKA
bureaucratic socialism], or (2) Abandonment [AKA unregulated free
enterprise].
Let those whose aspirations are to make money be free to make it
within the limits of their not being able to hurt those who either
have disabilities which prevent them from competing, or whose
value system motivates them to do things other than compete (e.g.,
do basic research, etc.).
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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