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Broadband Communism: Jeremy Corbyn gets serious about free internet
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThis is an appalling Marxist proposal and technology companies should be scared. This proposal means billions of Pounds wasted on killing the industry and billions more lost as a result. And then stagnation and a slow decay... I can only be generous enough to think that those writing praises are so young that they did not yet learn about the history of the 20th century. IMHO, the only result of this proposal is going to scare business circles and people in general away even more (if that was possible...)
- Miner49er 7y agoYeah, imagine if this was applied to something like water. Having it be a public utility? We'd all be dead...
- mytailorisrich 7y agoIt seems I was too generous... Your example misses both the point and the spirit of the proposal. Broadband and the technology sector in general are both highly competitive and highly innovative. As I mentioned, and as everyone sensible wrote in the media, they are about socialism: Everything must be state-owned (and in fact workers-owner) by political ideology. Nevermind that this failed with appalling results throughout the 20th century... At a time when Europe is commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall this is sad.
- Miner49er 7y agoIt's already been done in ~500 communities in the United States, according to the article. Capitalism failed so hard that governments could actually do it better. AFAIK, no one has died yet because of it.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoPeople being able to set up their own broadband when third party companies deem it not worthwhile is the free market working. This is not what they are proposing nor what would be allowed in their dream socialist regime. Again, this is nothing more than a re-hash of failed 20th century experiments (and many people did die because of the results...).
- Miner49er 7y agoYeah, my bad, I messed up my comment, I was editing it as you wrote yours. I meant to say "capitalism" not the free market. The socialist broadband was created in those communities because the privately owned broadband was so bad. But yeah, you're right, there's still a market.
- nicoburns 7y ago20th century experiments like Japan and South Korea's public internet infrastructure programs which lead them having fastest and cheapest internet connections in the world? Britain's national telecom company was rolling out fibre in the 80's before the conservative government decided we'd be better served by private companies. https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-l...
- hshsshhshs 7y agoSource on asian "public internet infrastructure"? I'd like to know more about this.
- NullPrefix 7y ago> Broadband and the technology sector in general are both highly competitive and highly innovative. Are we talking about UK or southern Europe, for example Romania with gigabit fiber at $20/mo for like the past 5 years ?
- andrekandre 7y ago> (and in fact workers-owner) what’s wrong with that? > by political ideology but isn’t that how our current system is as well? the political ideology of “free market” and “globalism” etc?
- toomuchtodo 7y agoCan you imagine? Workers and citizens owning critical local infrastructure instead of shareholders? The horror! Seriously though, there are efforts like this already in the UK as a non-profit [1], and they are crushing it. You don't need private ownership to bring about innovation. You need a healthy attitude towards trying unconventional methods, and constrained resources doesn't hurt. [1] https://b4rn.org.uk/ https://b4rn.org.uk/ (B4RN is a professionally designed fibre optic broadband network, registered as a non-profit community benefit society, and run by a dedicated local team with the support of landowners and volunteers. We offer 1,000Mbps FTTH broadband to every property in our coverage areas, costing households only £30 per month.) EDIT: B4RN did a 3 million pound bond offer, and it was oversubscribed by 10%. https://www.triodoscrowdfunding.co.uk/invest/broadband-for-the-rural-north https://www.triodoscrowdfunding.co.uk/invest/broadband-for-t...
- jessaustin 7y agotoo generous... It seems instead that you are too stingy with your arguments. Why is socialism such a bad policy for these sorts of services? You can't just invoke the Great Leap Forward and expect anyone to agree.
- nicoburns 7y agoAnd you think the position of "everything must be privately owned and a competitive market" is not an ideology? Internet infrastructure is a natural monopoly, and it makes a lot of sense for it to be publicly owned.
- davidw 7y agoAnd even if you think it's not a great idea, it's worth discussing it like adults rather than "communistical!", although the article's title doesn't help with that.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoDiscussing like adults means having the knowledge and will to face the facts (and to avoid childish blanket downvotes...) John McDonnell say himself that he is a Marxist. The current Labour manifest is hardcore socialist and many of their plans are exactly how things were in former socialist/communist countries. It's clueless or disingenuous to claim otherwise.
- nicoburns 7y agoIt's also disingenuous to compare their manifesto to full on communism when they are planning to leave the majority of the economy to the private markets. Just because someone thinks that Marx's analysis is insightful doesn't mean that they are advocating a soviet style economic system. You say their plans are "hardcore socialist", but most of them have comparable implementation in other western european countries. And socialist or not (socialism isn't a dirty word you know), they have generally been very successful for these countries. To take one example, a large proportion of the British rail system that is supposedly "privately" run, is in fact run by the state rail companies of other countries (who bid on the contracts). It's kind of crazy that we allow them to profit off our country in this way.
- InitialLastName 7y agoBroadband, being a natural monopoly in terms of having to actually run wires into your house, is the opposite of competitive. I don't know if Canada is the same way, but most places in the US have at most 2 options, both mediocre.
- andrenth 7y agoThis is no natural monopoly, only a broken system. Where I live in Brazil I have at least half a dozen broadband providers to choose from, big and small, and this is not a major city.
- fold_left 7y ago> technology companies should be scared. Why? > This proposal means billions of Pounds wasted on killing the industry Wasted or invested? > and billions more lost as a result. Why? By who? To who? > And then stagnation and a slow decay... Where? Due to what?
- larnmar 7y ago> Why? Because if the government decides that it can, at any point, kill off your entire industry and destroy hundreds of billions in value, then we’re all fucked.
- bnjms 7y agoYou are the government. Small communities running their own network is the best case for everyone. The labor required will not change so those of us with networking skills will still have work and the scale is still high enough to pay is well. As long as the wireless industry exists to provide competition I still wonder why are you worried?
- mytailorisrich 7y agoUnder the proposal we are discussing here, which is to nationalise broadband providers and to then provide the service 'free' to consumers there is no competition. Once this is done, then of course someone will say "hey let's nationalise the wireless industry as well"... Those guys are real Marxists, that's their ideology and goal.
- bnjms 7y agoApologies, that's the worst case.
- bassman9000 7y ago> Why? Unfair competition from the state, with limitless pockets, driving them to bankruptcy. > Wasted or invested? Wasted when finally repealed, or lost to lack of maintenance. > Why? By who? To who? Taxpayers > Where? Due to what? No competition. Lack of incentives to improve the network. edit: love to see the downvotes of those who can't argue. Keep em coming
- tristram_shandy 7y ago>I can only be generous enough to think that those writing praises are so young that they did not yet learn about the history of the 20th century. How ridiculous. Do you seriously expect readers of your comment to believe that the entire left, the professors, the students, the academics, the workers, the unionists, have somehow not been aware of the 20th century? That we're naive teenagers who haven't learned that Stalin was actually bad? Please.
- eloff 7y agoKnowing it and having taken the lesson to heart are two different things. Plenty of people advocate for socialist policies of the "we already know the outcome" kind. They sound fair, and good to the poor, but are in fact harmful to those same people. There are plenty of beneficial socialist policies, but sometimes the distinction between the two is not so clear.
- tristram_shandy 7y agoMore reasoned analyses of 20th century performed by actual academics tend to view the collapse of the Soviet Union as a complex process with multiple confounding factors, including heavy losses in WW2, meteorological tragedies such as drought, ensuring crises and massive social changes from a feudal serfdom being transformed into a space-faring nuclear superpower within two generations, corruption within Stalinism itself, inherent geographical and power advantages of America and West Europe, etc. Careers are built on this. No reasonable person objectively looks at 20th century history and says 'workers owning the means of production caused this', and it's equally asinine to suggest 'public broadband will lead us back to this'
- andrenth 7y ago> performed by actual academics It turns out academia is the one place where these ideas live on, because there is zero skin in the game required from those defending them. There is no consequence for backing a nice sounding theory that is deadly in the real world (e.g. Sartre and Pol Pot).
- dang 7y agoWould you please stop using HN for political battle? We've had to ask you about this already, and you started and perpetuated a tedious political flamewar here. We don't want that on HN, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of their politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mytailorisrich 7y agoI accept that HN is not for political battling but then the submission should be removed altogether as its only purpose is to promote a political agenda (and a dangerous one in my view). But if the submission is accepted then we should be able to comment on it, and that is going to be highly political since that is the substance of its contents. On the other hand, I do not accept your accusation that I started a political flamewar. I commented on the substance of the issue submitted. Please do not act in ways that might look partial or like political censorship, and so I have to object to you censoring my legitimate comment above. You are in the US so may not know the topic. The people currently in charge of the Labour party define themselves publicly as Marxist. It is not "political flamewar" to use the term to define their policies, it is simply a statement of fact based on this and on the actual substance of these policies. I have now flagged the submission. Let's see if moderation is balanced.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThis is a 100% political submission and I commented on its substance. It's disappointing to be censored and accused of "flame war" for doing this.
- dang 7y agoJust because an article has a political aspect doesn't make it exempt from the site guidelines or mean it's ok to start flamewars. On the contrary, those are where the rules apply the most. We want thoughtful conversation motivated by curiosity, and comments that add information. We do not want denunciatory rhetoric and generic venting. The latter are not ok regardless of the topic, so please don't post like that. If you had posted an informative critique of what's wrong with the proposal, that of course would have been fine. But if we take out the pejoratives, grand claims, and other information-free things, there's actually nothing left of that comment. Nowhere do you explain or justify any of your claims; you just piled on more of them. For example, calling something appallingly Marxist just adds noise. So does leaping darkly to "the history of the 20th century". You're far from the only user doing this, of course; people on all ideological sides do it here, and we moderate it when we see it. But you were specifically the user who swerved in this ideological battle direction and then, when others were predictably provoked, perpetuated it. That's definitely against the rules.
- dmix 7y agoI'm not 100% sure a surveillance state actually running the pipes of the internet will be much worse than some opaque telecom oligopolies with close ties to security services. But I suspect it would be.
- thundergolfer 7y agoGranted that surveillance state is what the UK is now, but Corbyn is a person with a political ideology that would have you get the free internet without surveillance. Not something that can be achieved easily though.
- tuukkah 7y agoThe money quote: "Nowhere is this more evident than in the United States, where in recent years more than 800 communities have established locally owned broadband networks (of which around 500 are publicly owned). This includes around 150 communities that have super-fast networks of at least 1Gbps and 20 that have 10Gbps networks. Publicly owned broadband networks are increasingly attractive because, like in the UK, wide swaths of the country – especially rural and low-income areas – remain unserved or underserved by the big corporate telecom companies. These corporations have little incentive to invest in improving networks in such areas, choosing instead to make profits for their shareholders by increasing rates for consumers in areas where they enjoy a monopoly or duopoly."
- dmix 7y agoLocally owned != federally run
- thundergolfer 7y agoLocally owned serving 10Gbps vs my corporate-owned inner Sydney service serving 10Mbps. Our government and corporations have utterly failed Australians.
- 6510 7y agoLets call every constructive thing government does for citizens [whatever it is] communism. But then we should also call everyone who opposes anything government does [what ever it is] an anarchist. edit: Wait, I forget to say something sensible... I think its just like pooping, you can do only so much of it. If the sewage system is sufficient for this we should just build it in a reliable way, schedule maintanance and be done with it. Privatization wont add to the experience.