5 ms·

Wouldn't it be: "governments are prone to being co-opted by special interests, therefore we rather allow companies to compete with each other freely in an open

Wouldn't it be: "governments are prone to being co-opted by special interests, therefore we rather allow companies to compete with each other freely in an open market and let consumers make the choice"

thoth 12y ago
That would be the ideal, but infrastructure issues such as this can't be handled by a "free market" acting all by itself. That's because whoever owns the land the infrastructure runs through can block progress, and the free market solution of competing elsewhere doesn't work. Land access is inherently limited by real world access problems that don't obey free market ideology. A free market for public utilities would start from the public, i.e. government, OWNING said infrastructure outright and then allowing private corporations to lease the right to use it to provide service. Only the government has the legal right to eminent domain so it can build roads and public utilities and generally seize land for the common good - private corporations would have to negotiate with every landowner whose property needs to be crossed, and that is obviously unworkable in the real world. From the current situation - which is a hodge podge of municipal services, private corporate services, agreements that limit competition, coupled with land access needs only eminent domain can provide - the only way to arrive at this paradise of "free market competition" is for the government to nationalize the entire thing, void all contracts with private service providers, and recreate the rules to allow competition among service providers by renting/licensing the infrastructure that is owned by the public. Otherwise it would take decades for existing agreements to expire or be renegotiated, and any improvement still have to rely on access and easements and various forms of eminent domain anyway. I cannot imagine the unending howling of the libertarian-type crowd if this were to happen. They complain that various governments have created this situation (municipalities giving exclusive deals to cable providers) but government power had to be there in the first place or there wouldn't be any infrastructure at all.
Karunamon 12y ago
Competition requires a "free open market", which isn't a thing that exists, and it depends on a knowledgeable and informed consumer base, which also isn't a thing that exists, and this all depends upon there being choice in the marketplace, which as has been demonstrated ad nauseum, also isn't a thing that exists. Hence regulation.
- baddox 12y ago
  > it depends on a knowledgeable and informed consumer base, which also isn't a thing that exists There's a comparable argument against democratic government somewhere in there.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Against the concept of democratic government, or against the implementation of a purely democratic government with no other additional regulations? I think it's the same thing with the "free market". The general concept is sound, but there are corner cases that must be addressed. Infrastructure, I would argue, is one of those.
    - baddox 12y ago
      Against the concept of any government whose policies ostensibly reflect the preferences of the population and whose authority is ostensibly consented to by the population, which I believe includes most modern Western nation states. According to mainstream Western theory (as I understand it), even aspects of policy which are not directly democratic or even routinely voted on by elected representative, like the Constitution, are justified as having legitimate authority because they are consented to by the governed. In other words, even those "additional regulations" you mention, which I assume include things like basic human rights which are supposedly not subject to reversal by normal voting, are included in my broad usage of the phrase "democratic government."
- novalis78 12y ago
  What if the free market in telecommunication does not exist "yet" or is, due to a long history of regulation and government involvement, inhibited, we need to add another bureaucratic layer? If Google Fiber shows up in my neighborhood and Comcast did everything to upset us, would not we all switch and Comcast realize that it needs to adjust (its service, pricing, quality, speed)? I guess my difficulty lies in not understanding why this market warrants a different approach than any other market.
  - 12y ago

thoth 12y ago

That would be the ideal, but infrastructure issues such as this can't be handled by a "free market" acting all by itself. That's because whoever owns the land the infrastructure runs through can block progress, and the free market solution of competing elsewhere doesn't work. Land access is inherently limited by real world access problems that don't obey free market ideology. A free market for public utilities would start from the public, i.e. government, OWNING said infrastructure outright and then allowing private corporations to lease the right to use it to provide service. Only the government has the legal right to eminent domain so it can build roads and public utilities and generally seize land for the common good - private corporations would have to negotiate with every landowner whose property needs to be crossed, and that is obviously unworkable in the real world. From the current situation - which is a hodge podge of municipal services, private corporate services, agreements that limit competition, coupled with land access needs only eminent domain can provide - the only way to arrive at this paradise of "free market competition" is for the government to nationalize the entire thing, void all contracts with private service providers, and recreate the rules to allow competition among service providers by renting/licensing the infrastructure that is owned by the public. Otherwise it would take decades for existing agreements to expire or be renegotiated, and any improvement still have to rely on access and easements and various forms of eminent domain anyway. I cannot imagine the unending howling of the libertarian-type crowd if this were to happen. They complain that various governments have created this situation (municipalities giving exclusive deals to cable providers) but government power had to be there in the first place or there wouldn't be any infrastructure at all.

Karunamon 12y ago

Competition requires a "free open market", which isn't a thing that exists, and it depends on a knowledgeable and informed consumer base, which also isn't a thing that exists, and this all depends upon there being choice in the marketplace, which as has been demonstrated ad nauseum, also isn't a thing that exists. Hence regulation.

baddox 12y ago
> it depends on a knowledgeable and informed consumer base, which also isn't a thing that exists There's a comparable argument against democratic government somewhere in there.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Against the concept of democratic government, or against the implementation of a purely democratic government with no other additional regulations? I think it's the same thing with the "free market". The general concept is sound, but there are corner cases that must be addressed. Infrastructure, I would argue, is one of those.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Against the concept of any government whose policies ostensibly reflect the preferences of the population and whose authority is ostensibly consented to by the population, which I believe includes most modern Western nation states. According to mainstream Western theory (as I understand it), even aspects of policy which are not directly democratic or even routinely voted on by elected representative, like the Constitution, are justified as having legitimate authority because they are consented to by the governed. In other words, even those "additional regulations" you mention, which I assume include things like basic human rights which are supposedly not subject to reversal by normal voting, are included in my broad usage of the phrase "democratic government."
novalis78 12y ago
What if the free market in telecommunication does not exist "yet" or is, due to a long history of regulation and government involvement, inhibited, we need to add another bureaucratic layer? If Google Fiber shows up in my neighborhood and Comcast did everything to upset us, would not we all switch and Comcast realize that it needs to adjust (its service, pricing, quality, speed)? I guess my difficulty lies in not understanding why this market warrants a different approach than any other market.
- 12y ago