Clinamen

Obsidian Wings is becoming one of my favorite blogs. Today, Publius takes on Patrick Ruffini's argument about the Obama administration's over-reaching regulation with regard to the Internet.

Ruffini argues that the Right has an opportunity to "take back" Silicon Valley:

With the threat of government intervention removed in the economic arena, the Valley has been free to indulge its libertarian instincts on social issues. This has been a boon, electorally and financially, to Democrats. Larry Lessig's "free culture" has replaced free markets as the dominant ethos in the Valley. The irony here is that many of the entreprenuers who succeeded in the most unregulated environment possible -- the Internet -- are at once hyper-capitalist and socially-liberal Obama voters.

Thankfully, Publius nips this myth in the bud:

This really can't be repeated enough -- the Internet was regulated. Regulation is what made it work. Indeed, the Internet's phenomenal success stemmed directly from the underlying common carrier regulation that made it possible.

There was no immaculate conception. The Internet came about because of sustained federal funding for research and development. Originally, the data services that ultimately evolved into what we now call "the Internet" depended entirely on access to the underlying phone networks.

And so when these data services got going, the federal government faced a choice. A crossroads, if you will. The government could ensure that Internet/data services had nondiscriminatory access to the underlying phone networks on which they "rode." Or, it could have allowed the phone companies (i.e., AT&T) to dictate the terms of access. (This is basically how most wireless service in America works -- it's the "walled garden" approach. And don't you loves it?).

Wisely, in the Computer Inquiries proceedings, the FCC opted for open, nondiscriminatory access. The Twitters of yesteryear didn't need permission from AT&T to start their business. The nondiscriminatory access that made the Internet successful didn't happen because AT&T was full of benevolent, far-seeing souls. It was because of government regulation. (On an aside, that's why the fight over net neutrality is actually a battle to maintain a ridiculously successful status quo).

Given that the Internet is probably the single greatest advance of mankind since the printing press, you could plausibly argue that the Internet is regulation's crown jewel.

When I re-read Lessig's The Future of Ideas recently, I started to think some of the arguments were dated. I was particularly struck by Lessig's arguments about an "unregulated" Internet. Throughout much of TFoI, Lessig seems to be working against an argument (prevalent at the time) that the Internet was an unregulated utopia. I saw the importance of Lessig's argument, but I also thought it was an argument that we needn't make anymore. I thought this myth had been debunked.

Clearly, the argument still has to be made. The Internet is the result of a number of design decisions - many of those design decisions were regulatory. Thanks for the reminder, Publius.