[IP] Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jock Gill <jg45@mac.com>
Date: July 25, 2007 9:11:07 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: Jock Gill <jg45@mac.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift

Dave,

For IP if you wish.

With respect to the comment below, I suggest we honestly consider  
what the "magic of the market place" has wrought and whether or not  
we want more of it. Considering that a first class economy requires a  
first class communications infrastructure and that the US private  
sector has failed to deliver this, while at the same time blessing us  
with global climate change, I have to wonder.

The deep insight in Krugman's article was not that one sector is  
better than the other, but that the only way forward is to form  
something greater than the sum of the parts out of the parts we  
have:  the public sector and the private sector working together.   
For too long our strength has been sapped and our status in the world  
degraded by the false dichotomy of the private sector vs the public  
sector.  Neither sector has perfect knowledge and both sectors make  
lots of mistakes all of the time, and always will, as a result.  But  
they work better for all of us when they work together than when they  
tear us apart fighting over dogmatic and ideological constructs.   
Especially when those constructs are false. The evidence of the price  
we pay for the ideological warfare of the public vs the private is  
obvious: global climate change, inferior infrastructure, bandwidth  
scarcity, energy dependence, etc.

Isn't past time to try some new approaches that give us the benefit  
of being greater than the sum parts?  The benefits of collective gain  
from collaboration at the edges, as David Reed so aptly describes it?

Regards,

Jock



Jock Gill

O: +1 (781) 396-0492
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<http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerasketches/>


On Jul 25, 2007, at 7:21 AM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Krulwich <krulwich@yahoo.com>
> Date: July 25, 2007 5:27:49 AM EDT
> To: dave@farber.net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift
> Reply-To: krulwich@yahoo.com
>
> What is best for our country is complicated.  If you look at what  
> countries like S Korea did to get to where they are today, you'll  
> see that there was a lot of government involvement that was far  
> from free market, but which made access cheaper and more  
> pervasive.  Very analogous IMVHO to the AT&T monopoly in early US  
> phone service.  While this is a good way to jump-start pervasive  
> access, it's not clear that it's a direction that's best for the US  
> long-term.  Yes, hands-off free market has its risks, but overall  
> it sure seems better than heavy government involvement.
>
> --Bruce
>
>
> David Farber <dave@farber.net> wrote:
> What nobody seems to want to talk about is *what is best for our
> country.* Should we take the attitude that what is good for AT&T and
> Verizon is good for America? If so, hasn't the last decade of abysmal
> failure taught us anything? What good will a national broadband
> policy do for us, in real terms, if we do not understand what the
> long term goals are and what will be needed to achieve those goals?
>
> As someone who has spent nearly every waking minute of the last ten
> years of my life working to address these issues, I can state without
> reservation, that unless we make some very serious policy changes -
> immediately - the damage we will do to our future will resonate for
> generations to come.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------



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