FC: Jerry Pournelle responds to "Would the Feds regulate the Net?"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

> From: "Jerry Pournelle" <jerryp () jerrypournelle com>
> To: <declan () well com>
> Subject: RE: Would the US Government regulate the Net? (by R. Solomon)
> Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 12:26:28 -0700
>
> The purpose of government is to hire and pay government workers, as many as
> possible and as much as possible. Of course the government will "regulate"
> the Net if given the chance. It will create ever so many government jobs.
>
> As to anti-trust, most of the time by the time it happens it isn't needed.
> This doesn't mean that the threat ought not be there. David McCord Wright
> even attributed the failure of capitalism to follow Marx's predictions to
> anti-trust. Perhaps he was right. He was pretty sharp about a lot of things.
>
> But a Adam Smith observed, two successful capitalists can't get together
> without discussing how they can use government to restrict competition by
> raising the barrier to entry of newcomers to their business. Which most
> regulation does nicely.  Raise the barrier through regulation and it's not
> anti-trust, it's somehow benign...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:  owner-politech () vorlon mit edu [mailto:owner-politech () vorlon mit edu]
> On Behalf Of Declan McCullagh
> Sent:  Wednesday, September 15, 1999 10:57 AM
> To:    politech () vorlon mit edu
> Cc:    rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu
> Subject:       FC: Would the US Government regulate the Net? (by R. Solomon)
>
> [Forwarded via Dave Farber]
>
> I agree and disagree with the author, Richard Solomon. I agree, of course,
> that
> governments are trying to regulate the Net. The reasons are well-known:
> Taxation, law enforcement demands, stability, "public interest," and so on.
[...]


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