Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:53:18 -0400
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 C: +1 (617) 449-8111 G: +1 (802) 548-4100 S: +1 (802) 659-4532 <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 comWhat 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. ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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Current thread:
- Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift David Farber (Jul 24)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift David Farber (Jul 25)
- Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift David Farber (Jul 25)
- Re: Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift David Farber (Jul 25)