The Collectivist Argument for ‘Net Neutrality' Doesn't Fly

A New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial, Net neutrality under attack by corporate hacks, drew this reply from “Jessica” to my opposing comment (See S-L—'Net neutrality too valuable to lose now.': No, Internet Freedom too Valuable to Lose, Ever):

the reason the government is involved is because the internet is a utility and must treat all comers the same. If they're toll Lanes on the internet it will stifle growth and give those with big bucks the advantage over smaller companies and leave the consumer paying more. More for a service that costs several times what people in other countries pay and delivers a far slower service to US customers than what foregin countries provide their citizens. I pay $47.00 a month for the slowest service available 10mb/s and it rarely ever gets close to being 10mb/s. 

We need net neutrality to keep the US competitive to the world around us.

I left this reply to Jessica, edited for clarity:

“[T]he internet is a utility” is an arbitrary assertion, driven by entitlement and greed of “consumers” and political cronies and the power lust of politicians, to justify monopolistic control by government. And that’s the point: net neutrality is a means to an end. Utilities are government enforced monopolies. Utilitization of the internet is likely the goal of net neutrality statists. But it is unjust and economically stupid to grant certain ISP companies monopoly status over certain regions, like electric companies, thus giving complete control of the internet to the government. These monopolies are beholden to the political class. It’s bad enough when it comes to electric utilities. It’s particularly dangerous when it comes to the internet, because who controls the internet controls a huge slice of the intellectual life of the country.

Collectivism is the moral escape hatch whenever one wants to justify running roughshod over other people’s lives, property, and rights. Countries don’t “provide” anything. A country is a society of individuals and individual associations. Individual producers and groups of individual producers (companies) offer and provide through investment, work, and trade. To say “the country provides” is to invite aggressive government coercion into private lives and the commandeering by the political class of private property. Citizens of a moral country don’t permit that. Collectivism holds that the center of moral concern is the group, not the individual. Collectivists speak of the group not as as collection of sovereign individuals but as an entity separate from and superior over the individual. The ISPs aren’t “the country.” They’re mere individual associations, of no consequence if “the country” wants to “provide” some good or service or “utility.” Who is “the country”? Anyone who claims to be—in this case, Jessica. Who is not the “country”? The owners and investors of the ISPs. That’s the collectivist gimmick.

It’s true that net neutrality stifles investment and thus innovation. It’s wrong to think government regulators are consumer welfare-driven and absurd to think ISP companies are out to gouge their own customers. The exact opposite is true: Regulators are beholden to politicians, political factions, and special interests. Private companies must ultimately satisfy customers. A government that forces ISPs to “treat all comers the same” is itself violating that principle where it truly counts—equal protection of the law. What happens when a single customer starts eating up vast amounts of an ISP’s capacity, to the detriment of the rest of an ISP’s customers? That’s what Comcast faced about 10 years ago. An ISP must be free, as a matter of law and morality, to charge the “data hog” more to, for example, finance increased capacity to meet the demand—or restrict its usage to protect its other customers’ access to the network. An ISP must be free, as a matter of moral right and law, to prioritize its users and manage its network capacity utilization. It must be free to evolve its network and respond as markets change and evolve, not as bureaucrats dictate. A net neutrality straight jacket cripples its ability to do so, thus crippling innovation. [In fact, as Andrea O'Sullivan points out at Reason, Obama’s 2015 “Open Internet {net neutrality} Order” didn’t actually forbid ISP’s from treating different traffic differently. It put the FCC in charge of dictating those differing treatments. In other words, “net neutrality” is not about net neutrality. It’s about government control]

ISP’s are vital parts of the internet. We should be thankful for their massive and continuing investments to keep up with consumer demand, innovative content, and constantly changing markets, and provide the superhighway for all of the internet content. Who will make these investments when their “reward” will be to turn control over to government bureaucrats and keep their networks dumb and stupid? At the very least, government controls will stifle would-be competitors, large as well as small who might otherwise be able to fill a market niche ignored by the big ISP guys. The government-imposed inability of ISP’s to manage their own private networks by their own judgment for the benefit of their customers and profit is the real threat to innovation and competitive pricing. Their rights should be protected as much as consumers and the Netflixes of the world, and all should be free to contract voluntarily to mutual advantage—or not—and none should be able to use the government as the hired gun to gain special economic advantages at the expense of others. If the Apples, Netflixes, and Googles don’t like what the existing ISPs offer, they are free to start their own. They can certainly afford it.

Related Reading:

NET NEUTRALITY VS. INTERNET FREEDOM—Alex Epstein

Note to Net Neutralityists: Be Careful What You Wish For

Why ‘Net Neutrality’ Drives the Left Crazy—Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall street Journal

Related Viewing:
NET NEUTRALITY NEUTERS THE INTERNET—Interview with Steve Simpson, the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of legal studies.

Note to Net Neutralityists: Be Careful What You Wish For

The distortions in the way the Trump FCC’s rollback of the Obama FCC’s so-called Net Neutrality rules is being reported is disgraceful. For example, AP reported:

The Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era “net neutrality” rules Dec. 14, giving internet service providers like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T a free hand to slow or block websites and apps as they see fit or charge more for faster speeds.

No. The FCC didn’t “give” the ISPs anything. It restored the rights of ISP providers to manage content traffic on their own networks—the networks that they built—as they see fit.

The original Obama rules did give something—a free ride to big content providers like Google, Facebook, and Netflix that lobbied for Net Neutrality regulations so they didn’t have to pay a voluntarily agreed-upon price or contractual conditions with the ISPs. In other words, the high-minded sounding “net neutrality” rules were just a crony regulation.

More seriously—though given far too little attention—the Net Neutrality power grab by government is a threat to free speech. In the name of “protecting consumers,” the rules put a handful of politically-appointed bureaucrats in charge of managing the flow of content across the internet. Thus the market—the cumulative choices of consumers that ultimately drives the ISP’s management—will no longer be the governing factor. The whims of government officials will. Once a precedent is net, its consequences spread and metastasize.

And it didn’t take long.

Intellectual freedom is crucial to the maintenance of a free and civil society. It’s no accident that the Founders made the protection of intellectual freedom explicit through the very First Amendment to the Constitution. The FCC’s 2015 so-called “net neutrality” rule was an opening wedge of control and an attack on that freedom where it is the most unfettered—the internet. It didn’t take long to see why and how that rule was only a start. As the Washington Post recently reported in The Switch: Tech companies pushed for net neutrality. Now Sen. Al Franken wants to turn it on them:

For years, tech companies have insisted that they're different from everything else. Take Facebook, which has long claimed that it's a simple tech platform, not a media entity. “Don't be evil,” Google once said to its employees, as though it were setting itself apart from the world's other massive corporations.

But now, some policymakers are increasingly insisting that firms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter really aren't that special after all — and that perhaps it's time they were held to the same standard that many Americans expect of electricity companies or Internet providers.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) became the latest and most vocal of these critics Wednesday when, at a Washington conference, he called for tech companies to follow the same net neutrality principles that the federal government has applied to broadband companies such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast.

There you have it. The lure of political power—the power of the gun to coerce and control—is insatiable. Electric companies, bad as those monopolies are, carry mere electricity. Internet providers carry intellectual content. When government took the step of forcing “net neutrality” on the Internet Service Providers, they took a huge step toward control of the intellectual life of Americans. Now they’re agitating to take the next step—extend that control to content providers. Once we started down the road of government control of the internet camouflaged as “net neutrality,” there was nothing to stand in the way of power-lusters to expand their reach. A “call” for “net neutrality” on Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al, will eventually turn into a legal mandate and control if it is not stopped.

Alex Epstein saw this coming in 2006:

The widespread support for net neutrality among successful Internet companies — including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon — is short-sighted and contemptible. These companies, which have benefited greatly from the unimpeded freedom of the Internet, are now trying to deny the same freedom to innovative ISPs and ambitious competitors under the egalitarian banner of “equal access.” This is an invitation for any clever moocher to demand “equal access” to their hard-earned resources; indeed, Google is already being sued because its proprietary search engine allegedly gives “unfair” rankings to certain companies. [My emphasis]

To be clear, the FCC’s 2015 “net neutrality” rule didn’t replace an unregulated internet. There was regulation, by the FTC, targeted at specific complaints as they arose. Nor was the “net neutrality” some iron-clad guarantee of strict sameness in how ISPs managed traffic on their systems. There were plenty of “loopholes” for the ISPs to exploit under “net neutrality”. The ISP’s could still discriminate—but only after getting FCC permission. ” As my Mercatus Center colleague Brent Skorup has tirelessly pointed out,”  Andrea O'Sullivan points out,

the OIO [Open Internet Order, aka “Net Neutrality”] did not require all internet actors—ranging from ISPs to content platforms to domain name registrars and everything else—to be content-blind and treat all traffic the same. Rather, it erected an awkward permission-and-control regime within the FCC that only affected a small portion of internet technology companies. [my emphasis]

In other words, the government seizes control.

But the details are beside the point. As the great James Madison once said in the context of defending religious liberty from government encroachment, “The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle."

The principle involved today is the idea that the companies that have given us unprecedented freedom to talk to one another should be controlled by the state. A state that can dictate how content can be carried on the ISP’s networks can also dictate what content can and cannot be allowed on the networks. Franken’s jab at the content providers shows the principle in action. Therefore, we should deny that principle—the principle that the government should have any say whatsoever in what content flows on the internet and how it flows, what it costs, how it is managed, etc. Electricity is one thing. But for all the hollow talk by net neutralityists about protecting consumers, who in their right mind would want the state to dictate what we say and how we say it to each other?

Which gets us back to Franken. As O'Sullivan observes over at Reason,

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made this very point last week at an R Street Institute event on the repeal. Major edge service providers like Google, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter have made their opposition to OIO deregulation loud and clear to their user base. Some have displayed automatic messages on their front pages, urging visitors to take action and encourage others to do the same. Yet at the same time, these services engage in kinds of content blocking that they say broadband providers could possibly do.

This hypocrisy is relevant for more than just ideological inconsistency. It's about economic power. By encouraging harsh regulation of ISPs that effectively controls the rates that major tech companies can be charged for bandwidth, these companies are engaging in a kind of regulatory capture.

While I dispute O’Sullivan’s characterization of the edge service (content) providers demanding that net neutrality be imposed on the ISPs as economic power—regulation is actually political power, and there is a night-and-day difference there—the point is clear. Franken is right: If net neutrality is the goal, then why shouldn’t the “tech companies . . . follow the same net neutrality principles that the federal government has applied to broadband companies such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast?” The principle demands it. There’s no logical reason why they shouldn’t.

Which is precisely why the net neutrality rules should have been repealed. Avoid the consequences of the principle by denying the principle!

Let’s not be suckered by the statists or the cronyists. “Net Neutrality” is not about consumer protection, which is already adequately covered by anti-fraud and breach-of-contract laws. It’s about government control—about erecting a “permission-and-control regime within the FCC.” Government-imposed “net neutrality” rules are stupid in terms of economics and stifling of innovation, and unfair in terms of violating the property rights of the ISPs that built their networks. But “net neutrality” mandates are also downright dangerous to intellectual freedom—our freedom to express our thoughts—and should be repealed. We should do no less than follow Madison’s advice, and deny the government any say in controlling how the ISPs and tech companies manage their businesses and networks, as a matter of principle. Our ability to freely speak, communicate, debate, and rebut ideas is at stake. Repeal the government’s Net Neutrality rules and forbid them from ever re-imposing such rules again.

Better yet, abolish the FCC as the major threat to freedom of speech that it is. Net Neutrality supporters profess concern about the “power” of the ISP’s to control content flow on their networks. But it’s their networks, after all. Their power—economic power—derives from their ability to build and provide an offer of internet service, which consumers are free to accept or reject. The power that should be of concern is the government’s power—political power; the power to coerce and control and enforce edicts at the point of a gun. That’s the power that the FCC brings to bear on the flow of information and ideas across the internet. It’s not enough to say the government would never use its power to stifle that flow. But that’s not the point. It can use it covertly, by way of regulatory extortion, just as easily though less detectably as it can overtly. But even if not, a government of a free country should never have that power to begin with—not the power to control intellectual discourse nor, more broadly, the power to interfere in private economic contract between private citizens or their companies without evidence of rights violations. Our intellectual and economic freedom should not be at the mercy of government officials or politics

Good riddance to Net Neutrality. We need legal neutrality—a government that protects rights equally and at all times. Don’t give the next administration the opportunity to reimpose these rules, or something even worse. Abolish the Federal Communications Commission now.

Related Reading:

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet—Raymond C. Niles for The Objective Standard

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet—Raymond C. Niles for The Objective Standard

David Harsanyi: Forget Net Neutrality, and Abolish the FCC—David Harsanyi

Save the ‘Net’; Abolish the FCC—David Harsanyi

S-L—'Net neutrality too valuable to lose now.': No, Internet Freedom too Valuable to Lose, Ever

S-L—'Net neutrality too valuable to lose now.': No, Internet Freedom too Valuable to Lose, Ever

The Trump FCC is taking a lot of heat for its move to repeal so-called “net neutrality” regulations on internet service providers. Typical of the heat comes from the New Jersey Star-Ledger, which editorialized Net neutrality too valuable to lose now.

[T]he web has a bedrock principle: The mighty broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon shouldn’t be allowed to selectively slow down or block websites, and all internet data must be treated equally.

“Treated equally” means content providers like Netflix, which use extraordinary amounts of broadband capacity, can’t be charged more for their usage. Net neutrality means simply that federal bureaucrats get to override private contracts between providers of service and content.

This, supposedly, is good for consumers.

I left these comments:

So let’s get this straight: ISPs catering to government bureaucrats, rather than consumers, is good for consumers? That’s the absurdity behind “net neutrality.”

It’s not the big, bad “mighty broadband providers” we should fear. They’re the producers who invested the $billions to build the physical capacity that makes the internet possible. It’s the government—the political hacks—with its legal power to compel obedience, that we should fear. A government with the power to dictate “net neutrality” regulations on these private companies has the power to regulate anything on the internet. Just the implied threat of regulation is a form of physical coercion that can be levied against the ISPs—and indirectly on content providers. Regulatory power as such is the power to compel obedience at gunpoint. Don’t forget the IRS free speech-stifling scandal. It’s bad enough that the land of the First Amendment even has a Federal Communications Commission. Don’t compound that injustice with net neutrality rules.

I, as one consumer, will not be suckered by the statists’ hollow slogans into handing over control to government bureaucrats. The big content providers like Netflix and their customers don’t deserve government-coerced handouts [full disclosure: I am a Netflix subscriber]. They can pay their fair share for the consumer-driven products they provide. Internet fees are properly the right of ISPs and content providers to contractually negotiate among themselves without government interfering on behalf of one party or another.

Market supply and demand, not crony-oriented dictates of government bureaucrats, should be the concern of the ISPs. While the computer code of the internet is open source—free for anyone to use—the physical equipment of the internet is not some public domain. It is privately built networks, and the networks belong to whoever builds them based on the principle of property rights. The ISPs built their networks. They are, despite certain government-imposed roadblocks, largely subject to competition—new ISPs are free to enter the market at any time. An ISP has a right to set the terms according to its profitability, its capital expenditure needs, and the good of its overall customer base, whether it is pricing or who to sell their capacity, so long as it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights. Charging extra for heavy users of the network it built, owns, and operates is perfectly legitimate. If an ISP overcharge, the market will force it to alter its policies.

The internet, like the printing press before it, is particularly critical to a free society because it is a direct intersection of economics and free speech. Economic freedom and intellectual freedom are corollaries. The Left has been itching to get control of the intellectual marketplace of ideas, just as it has gained immense control over the marketplace of goods. They are enemies of free speech (think campaign finance controls). Net neutrality is not only about economic control—the government running roughshod over private citizens’ private property, bad as that is: it is an opening wedge of intellectual control. The only neutrality there should be is in regard to government and its laws: Unless there is evidence of fraud or other criminal behavior, keep government out of the private internet and apply equal protection of the law without favoritism. A government-controlled, politically corrupted internet is not a “free and open internet.” Only a market-oriented internet is truly free and open.

Net neutrality was first introduced under the GW Bush FCC. Obama made it worse. It is a bipartisan atrocity. Government-enforced “net neutrality,” if not the FCC itself, should be abolished.

Related Reading:

Toward a Less-Free Internet: The FCC’s New ‘Net Neutrality’ Regulations

"Net Neutrality" Really Means Government Control of the Internet

David Harsanyi: Forget Net Neutrality, and Abolish the FCC

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet—Raymond C. Niles for The Objective Standard

Related Viewing:

NET NEUTRALITY NEUTERS THE INTERNET—Interview with Steve Simpson, the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of legal studies.

David Harsanyi: Forget Net Neutrality, and Abolish the FCC

Back in 2010, when the Federal Communications Commission first tried to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules, David Harsanyi of The Denver Post identified the danger in such regulation. Rather than merely argue for rolling back net neutrality regulations, Harsanyi rightly and far-sightedly identified the fundamental problem, arguing that it’s not enough to quibble over regulations. More importantly, he wrote, Save the 'Net; abolish the FCC. Here are some excerpts:

It's not that we don't need the FCC's meddling, it's that we don't need the FCC at all. Rather than expanding the powers — which always seem to grow — of this outdated bureaucracy, Congress should be finding ways to eliminate it.

Why would we want a prehistoric bureaucracy overseeing one of the century's great innovations? As a bottom-up, unregulated and under- taxed market in which technological innovation, free speech and competition thrive — at affordable prices, no less — the Internet poses a crisis of ideology, not commerce, for the FCC. It's about control and relevance. What else can explain the proactive rescue of the Web from capitalistic abuses that reside exclusively in the imagination of a handful of progressive ideologues?

And in a statement that seems almost prophetic, Harsanyi warned:

Even as Chairman Julius Genachowski claims that he will employ a "light touch," the FCC leaves open the possibility that it will use the Title II docket to classify broadband as a public utility. . .

Given the recent moves by the Obama Administration to do just that—regulate the internet as a public utility—Harsanyi’s call for abolition of the FCC is more important than ever. I urge reading Harsanyi’s op-ed in full.

I posted this commentary under my screen name “Mike Zemack”:

Harsanyi is right: The FCC, a 1926 Republican creation originally called the Federal Radio Commission, is a direct threat to freedom of speech and should be abolished outright. The very idea of a government-operated "communications commission" conflicts directly with the principles behind the First Amendment. Ultimately, one or the other will disappear, as they cannot logically co-exist. I would add that Net Neutrality is also a threat to property rights, since internet providers would be forced to grant access to their equipment to all comers whether they wish to or not.

But the most bizarre justification for the FCC's action is that it would prevent internet monopolies.

Monopoly power thrives under regulatory regimes, as only a few minutes of rational thought can demonstrate. There are only two ways for any would-be "monopolist" to thwart smaller but superior competitors - meet the challenge in the marketplace or buy political influence over the regulators. The first method puts millions of "consumers" in charge of picking the winners through voluntary trade. The second concentrates power over an entire industry in a small clique of commissioners armed with the power of government's legal monopoly on physical force... i.e., law. Such concentrations of political power always acts as a magnet for powerful special interests seeking to "influence" the regulators. At the top of that list will always be the kinds of businesses that seek to trample competitors by government favor.

The only protection against true monopoly "economic" power - the power of a corporation to legally bar competition - is a free market, because only government can legally thwart a successful business competitor. Free markets separate political power from the economic realm, thus leaving a level playing field of free and voluntary trade. To concentrate political control over economic activity as a means of preventing monopolies is straight out of Orwell's 1984.

Related Reading:

"Net Neutrality" Really Means Government Control of the Internet

Toward a Less-Free Internet: The FCC’s New ‘Net Neutrality’ Regulations

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet—Raymond C. Niles for The Objective Standard

Toward a Less-Free Internet: The FCC’s New ‘Net Neutrality’ Regulations

The Federal Communications Commission recently announced new “net neutrality” rules, ostensibly to guarantee a “free and open internet.” But as the New York times reported, the new rules are “a strong hand to regulate the internet.” In reading FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s defense of his plan, one can uncover hidden threats to internet freedom.

For example, Wheeler claims his rules are “bright-line rules.” But that doesn’t jive with his claim that the plan gives the FCC regulatory powers that are “strong enough and flexible enough not only to deal with the realities of today, but also to establish ground rules for the as yet unimagined.” That sounds like arbitrary power to me. With that kind of ‘flexibility,” Wheeler’s assurances that there will be “no rate regulation” ring hollow. Under arbitrary, “flexible” government regulatory power—i.e., the power of legalized aggressive force—backroom armtwisting can easily be used to impose de facto price controls. And what does it mean to “ban paid prioritization’ (so-called “fast lanes”), if not price controls?

Similarly, the new rules would forbid Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from “blocking and throttling . . . lawful content and services.” But if the FCC has the power to force companies to carry content it may not want to carry, on what basis can anyone say that the FCC cannot itself order ISPs not to carry content the government disapproves of?

Recently, the New Jersey Star-Ledger defended the new FCC net neutrality rules, which would regulate the internet as a public utility “just like your gas, water and electric service.” The S-L called Wheeler’s decision “smart and righteous.”

“Under current law,” the S-L claims, “the internet was an unregulated ‘information service,’ subject to the whims of internet service providers such as Verizon and Comcast. . .” Yet, private companies must ultimately heed, thoughtfully and with long-term planning, the demands of the market, not their own whims. If anyone is subject to whims, it is government regulators—to political whims.

I left these comments:

“Net neutrality” is more complex than catch phrases make it sound. I acknowledge I’m not an expert. But from what I’ve read and heard from both sides, this is what I’ve concluded:

Net neutrality is a government power grab to “fix” a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s a joke to say today’s internet styfles innovation. Every few months or so another internet billionaire bursts on the scene. Just look at the economic revolution the internet spawned in just two decades. The internet is a thriving coldren of websites freely competing for customers. New internet companies are constantly arising, seemingly out of nowhere, capturing vast markets, and challenging big incumbents. While some companies may be able to buy faster speeds, there are no “limp along” slow speeds, just less-fast speeds.

I remember when telephone service was tightly controlled by government. It was a time when you needed a second job to pay for long distance phone calls, and innovation was essentially absent for decades. It wasn’t until government stepped back, broke up the government-enforced AT&T monopoly, and largely deregulated the telephone market that innovation really took off. Do we want to regress the internet to the likes of the unholy government/AT&T monopoly alliance?

“Net neutrality” is really about putting government in charge of setting contract terms between ISPs and content providers. Government bureaucrats will have the back-door power to set content, and ultimately prices, and—like with any state regulatory apparatus—open the lobbying floodgates. This will favor big established companies who can afford big lobbyists, provide welfare for big businesses to get cheaper rates than they can by voluntary agreement, reduce the market power of consumers, violate the rights of ISPs to manage their networks—which they spent $billions building—according to market conditions, and threaten the First Amendment.

If you're really against monopoly, you should oppose Net Neutrality regulations. Private ISP “monopolies” are not a threat. They are market-driven. The government, with its law-making powers, has a monopoly on the legal use of physical force and compulsion. That’s the monopoly we should be concerned with. “Net neutrality” is anything but neutral. It would put government bureaucratic whim in charge. Do we really want a handful of government bureaucrats overriding the market, dictating content, setting prices, catering to the most powerful lobbyists and special interests, and picking winners and losers, rather than consumers? That’s what regulating the internet will mean. And giving this coercive monopoly power to government is advocated in the name of “internet freedom”! Somewhere, George Orwell is saying, “I told you so!”

For a counter-argument to net neutrality advocates, I recommend Net Neutrality vs. Internet Freedom and Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet.

--

The Star-Ledger likes to trumpet polls when they support its case, and pooh-pooh them when it doesn’t. In this case, the S-L noted the “4.5 million emails flooding Wheeler's inbox the last 12 months - proof that consumers can get their hackles up and lead a righteous fight” in support of its case. But in another recent editorial, the Star-Ledger lamented the fact that most people oppose a hike in the NJ gasoline tax because of its “refusal to face fiscal reality.” But the S-L called on legislators to hike the tax anyway, noting that public support is not needed for legislatures to exercise its taxing powers. “[L]et’s first give a nod to the Founding Fathers for keeping this kind of decision out of the hands of the public,” cheered the S-L.

Well, the public is certainly wrong on net neutrality. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers kept the power to dictate how private individuals and companies manage their property and contract with each other out of the hands of both the public and the government. Let’s hope that in the coming legal challenges to these net neutrality rules, the courts understand this.

Related Reading:

"Net Neutrality" Really Means Government Control of the Internet

Save the ‘Net’; Abolish the FCC—David Harsanyi

Court Correctly Rejects Rights-Violating Net “Neutrality” Rules—Ari Armstrong

Related Viewing:

NET NEUTRALITY NEUTERS THE INTERNET—Interview with Steve Simpson, the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of legal studies.

"Net Neutrality" Really Means Government Control of the Internet

Recently, a federal court struck down an FCC attempt to impose so-called "net neutrality" rules on internet service providers (ISPs). Net neutrality is government-enforced law that forbids ISPs from "discriminating" in regard to internet content providers who use their networks, whether in regard to price of services, distribution of bandwidth (capacity) content providers can use, etc. 

In response to the court ruling, the FCC last Spring proposed allowing ISPs to charge higher rates for faster service. This raised the ire of a host of companies, venture capitalists, "consumer advocates", and other net neutrality proponents. The FCC is expected to make a final decision after a period of public comment, which ends in September.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger presented the case for government-enforced "net neutrality". They wrote:

    Unless somebody has an ethical transfusion, net neutrality could be demolished during another D.C. power grab tomorrow morning, when the Federal Communications Commission will hold an open meeting.
    At issue is whether FCC chairman Tom Wheeler goes through with his plan to create a "fast lane" for the high-capacity content that you get from the likes of Netflix or YouTube, while everything else gets funneled into the sclerotic pathway filled with smaller websites that cannot afford the extortion demanded by Comcast, Road Runner or Verizon.

The Star-Ledger went so far as to call for full regulatory control of ISPs by turning them into the equivalent of phone companies. I left these comments: 

"[Wheeler] seems reluctant to take the easy way out: The FCC can simply reclassify ISPs as common carriers and bring them under its regulatory control through Title II of the Communications Act."—Star-Ledger

This indicates what's really at stake in the net neutrality fight; increasing government control of the internet, via government bureaucrats' power to dictate how ISPs run their businesses—who they must contract with, how much they may charge, and ultimately what content they may provide.

ISPs invested $billions to build out their infrastructures. It is their business and their property that provides the service, and they have a right to manage their services according to their own judgement, including charging different rates for different qualities of service. The big companies that can afford the higher rates for faster service got big by building a large base of satisfied customers. It is, after all, consumers who ultimately decide who grows and who doesn't, who is profitable and who isn't. If a new company cannot afford the higher rates, then they must build their business through the "sclerotic pathway" until they achieve the kind of consumer base that will give them the revenue and profits to afford the higher rates. (Keep in mind that internet quality and speed is always improving thanks to investments in new technology, including by ISPs.)

I think the editors are the ones who need an ethical transfusion. Individual rights, including property and contract rights, should be the standard for law and government policy. "Net neutrality" rules violate rights and represent a government power-grab over the internet. A truly "free and open internet" requires that ISPs, internet content providers, and their consumers be left free to contract voluntarily with each other to mutual advantage, with government as enforcer, not dictator, of contracts. The government's job is to protect rights—equally and non-discriminatorily. It's government neutrality that we need.

For a more in-depth argument against government-enforced net neutrality, I recommend Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet.