Why I’m Against Net Neutrality

The Birth of Corruption before your eyes

By Carl Killough


It’s time for some clarification.

I am against Net Neutrality and the FCC. You should be too.

This one of my principles that I rely upon when deciding if extending the government power over us is actually desirable:

Laws tend to get made with the best of intentions, but once our eye is distracted from the matter, those who have a vested interest (corporations and politicians) in the power of the state will spend far greater effort to embed themselves politically than any effort you or I would to make sure they are actually acting in our best interest. If no one polices the police, corruption results and the new bureaucracy starts to be used in a way that is counter to the original intent of the law.

So, I have to ask myself, do I want to give Comcast, Cox, Century Link, Verizon, Facebook, Google, et al. an incentive to choose to spend their time and resources hiring lobbyists for more political control, or do I want to take that incentive away from powerful corporations and thus encourage them to hire more engineers, lay more fiber, or develop a new way to use the net we’ve never thought of before?

I choose the later, so I must encourage a reduction in state power, and therefore I’m not only against net neutrality, but the FCC as well.

None of this makes the choice any easier. The net neutrality law looks very seductive on the surface. It proposes to protect the little guy and to keep ‘unfair’ business practices in check with internet communications companies. Who could possibly be against that? However, we must look at if the law will actually achieve the desired results.

Who has the power to lobby congress? Who has the resources to bring their will to bear in government?

Large, powerful corporations with massive coffers.

 

It is this merger of state power with corporate money that creates the exact opposite of the intent of the law. This is the definition of crony capitalism. And it means business is no longer spending its time and resources on providing a better service to its customers to drive profits, because it has found a shortcut to make money. By creating a government body to protect us from what we fear businesses may do, we actually create the incentive for a business to spend money on something that is of no value to the consumer: becoming politically involved.

Large companies don’t mind regulation.

They have the resources to get around it. What happens when they get caught breaking one of the rules of the bureaucracy? They may get fined. They pass the costs of that fine on to us by raising prices or finding a way to cut costs. No one personally responsible on the boards of large corporations will take a pay hit. They are protected by the legal structure of a corporation.

Small companies do not have the resources to comply with massive regulation. This creates a barrier to entry that is completely artificial. This is bad for the consumer and reduces choice.

Why do we expect one more law or organization to actually protect us when the exact opposite has been true in the past?

The Bureaucratic Cycle

Time and time again this kind of thing happens. I find it excessively ironic that I get Net-Neutrality activist emails from an organization that names itself ‘Fight for the Future’ when it’s obvious they are doing the exact opposite. If this activist organization really sees the FCC and Net Neutrality as an the best option, they should be much more concerned about the underlying structure of those organizations. They should be concerned with the new incentives these organizations create for business.

Think of the connection between the banks and the government. The same people cycle in and out of bureaucratic positions and corporate ones all the time. This sets up the iron triangle of bureaucracy, interests groups, and congress. The telecommunications industry is no different and has been embedded in the government for many years. It is not a free market. It’s already crony capitalism.

Organisations like the FCC tend to go one of two directions: calcification into a deep state bureaucracy to protect themselves from the constantly shifting political climate of DC, or a free floating, non-principled organization that does whatever those are currently in power in DC desire. The former is more common for government law enforcement agencies, the later for commercial regulatory bodies.

Both are toxic.

Both result in less freedom and more manipulation by those with power and resources. It’s time to break the iron triangle and remove the power structures that short circuit the natural interaction of people with other people. Don’t let them steal your freedom by selling you their ‘help’.

If none of this convinces you, then ask yourself, do you enjoy the service you have now? I do. The explosion of cell phone resellers resulted from competition between the very companies the government is offering to protect us from. I pay less for three lines and unlimited talk and text plus internet than I did for one line through Verizon 5 years ago.

….And I wonder how much better it would be had there been no incentives to make money by doing anything other than providing the best service for the consumer.

Additional reading on the poison of regulation:

We could have had cell phones 40 years earlier.
https://fee.org/articles/we-could-have-had-cell-phones-40-years-earlier/

Soros is very interested in exercising power through regulation:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/12/fcc-cites-soros-funded-neo-marxist-founded-group-46-times-in-new-regs/http://dailycaller.com/…/fcc-cites-soros-funded-neo-marxis…/

Is there truth to the story of the ‘robber barons’ and standard oil?

https://mises.org/library/100-years-myths-about-standard-oil

https://fee.org/…/witch-hunting-for-robber-barons-the-stan…/


For the history you didn’t learn in school, check out Liberty Classroom:

Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day….

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