roundtable: Re: OP-ED ON TV - PUBLIC

roundtable: Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC

Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC

Brad Cox (bcox@gmu.edu)
Sat, 7 Jan 1995 23:23:44 -0500 

Message-Id: <v02110304ab35147f3bac@[192.0.1.2]>
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 23:23:44 -0500
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: bcox@gmu.edu (Brad Cox)
Subject: Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC


>I haven't heard anyone promote a bureaucracy.  Quite the contrary.

That was a reaction to the term "public good" which seems to be the
euphemism for bureacracy these days. But that was reaction, not my real
point (see below)

>I have heard many in this discussion promote open, free, diverse,
>community oriented communication.  This communication requires a
>conduit... _channel space_... spectrum...accessible to all for the
>transmission of ideas.

My point (Nerd vs Newbie submission )is that historical infrastructures
(rivers, canals, trains, highways) were built (and funded) for
transportation of goods, not just ideas. The ideas came along free for 
the ride (which is not to say they aren't important, only that ideas 
didn't pay for the railroads; freight tariffs did; highways were paid 
for by bureaucracy to exterminate railroads).

Markets are also infrastructures by your definition: conduit, channel
space, spectrum. AS are transportation infrastructures such as highways.
The paradox is that society hasn't figured out what goods mean when 
goods are made of bits instead of atoms, nor how to pay for 
infrastructures when the markets they connect aren't robust. We're 
stuck with building superhighways between waste disposal dumps (email 
and netnews) instead of between thriving market towns (bookstores, 
libraries, newstands).

But most of all, markets (see Hayek) are the opposite of beaurocracy.
Bureacracy is central planning. Markets are distributed decision-making 
by individuals pursuing their own self-interest. Russia collapsed because 
of a failure of central planning. We didn't because distributed decision 
making mobilizes the tacit knowledge of individuals to most effectively 
use scarce resources.

--
Brad Cox; bcox@gmu.edu and bcox@clark.net
GMU Program on Social and Organizational Learning
(703) 968 8229 voice (703) 934 1578 fax
Web: email listproc@www0.cern.ch with body of
http://www.site.gmu.edu/~bcox/middleofnowhere.html

[CNI Home Page]