PFF's Magna Carta and the new netserfs

[rishab@dxm.ernet.in]

rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
> Cyberspace and the American Dream:  A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age
> Release 1.2 // August 22, 1994,  Progress and Freedom Foundation
> Analysis By:       Richard K. Moore       20 January 1995
> [...]
> It also spells the death of the central institutional paradigm of modern 
> life, the bureaucratic organization. (Governments, including the American 
> government, are the last great redoubt of bureaucratic power 
> [  Corporations, as a seat of bureaucratic power,
> [  manage to escape notice here. Ah well, so many
> [  details, so little time...

I've never figured out why governments are made out to be so bad; guns, ok,
but the problems of privacy we face on this list have little to do with that.
Corporations can be at least as bad - extreme government leads to socialism,
which often retains some form of citizen-participation in decision-making;
the corporate state, though, is exemplified in fascism, inherently much less
concerned about citizen's rights.

> Clear and enforceable property rights are essential
> for markets to work. Defining them is a central [...]
> If this analysis is correct, copyright and patent
> protection of knowledge (or at least many forms of it)
> may no longer be unnecessary...

As many of us have argued, in what is sometimes called a 'post-capitalist'
economy, (intellectual) property rights will not be enforceable. They may
be respected often - but then that requires no laws; after all no one had
tried to rob Phil Zimmerman of his (only recently trademarked) 'PGP'. Those
who depend too much on enforced rights will not survive. I've discussed in
my column, Electric Dreams, and on this list the shift in economic structure
that will have to take place - cooking-pot markets, knowledge exchanges etc;
concept patents enforced by net.cops are most certainly 'Second Wave thinking!'

> The current Administration has identified the right
> goal: Reinventing government for the 21st Century

Praise from Gingrich the Newt's pet think tank...

> This said, it is essential that we understand what it really means 
> to create a Third Wave government and begin the process of transformation.

'Third Wave' is such a lovely phrase that it is all too easy to hand wave 
opposing beliefs and concerns - "that's Second Wave thinking." Reminds me of 
the Freudian defense against Jung - "Ah, Jung was sexually repressed as an 
infant and therefore jealous of his mentor's open emphasis on id..." - 
solipsism is great for argument, but does little to elicit the truth.

> That is why obstructing such collaboration -- in the
> cause of forcing a competition between the cable and
> phone industries -- is *socially elitist*. To the

FOL! That competition and distributed ownership is elitist has long been
held true by communists; the reason we prefer it this way is that monopolies
end up being elitist too - benefiting those within them.

> [  There you have it. The American Dream and frontier
> [  competitiveness lead us inevitably to the following
> [  mandate for cyberspace:
> [        (1) strong private property rights
> [        (2) infrastructure to be owned by an
> [            unregulated private monopoly
> [        (3) investment to be written off rapidly

Those who remember their history will note that the original Magna Carta was
not a pact that distributed power from a King to the people, but to a feudal
nobility - the rest of us, netSERF on!


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Rishab Aiyer Ghosh          rishab@dxm.ernet.in           rishab@arbornet.org
Vox +91 11 6853410 Voxmail 3760335       H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA