HT to the PowerLine folks, here’s Ben Barber:
The second dilemma posed by the new capitalism is the privatization of a digital public utility (the Internet) as the result of Bill Clinton’s decision (in the Telecommunications Act of 1996) to deregulate digital media because of so-called spectrum abundance, which supposedly offers room for diverse voices and needs no government enforcement of fairness or the public good. . .
Private ownership corrupts democracy because money skews power rather than equalizing it. For new media to be potential equalizers, they must be treated as public utilities, recognizing that spectrum abundance (the excuse for privatization) does not prevent monopoly ownership of hardware and software platforms and hence cannot guarantee equal civic, educational and cultural access to citizens.
Pretty incredible for a group dedicated to social justice, empowering the little guy, having a voice, that a core position of the 21st century platform with which to take to the people their case is censorship and don’t kid yourself that it is about anything else. There are plenty of other goodies in the piece including the claim that the power to tax “ourselves” is not intrusive, or perhaps a necessary evil, but in fact, empowering. Ahhh, the mind of such enlightened people is an awesome thing to behold.
