roundtable: Re: $100 Billion Giveaway

roundtable: Re: $100 Billion Giveaway

Re: $100 Billion Giveaway

RznDemoPM@aol.com
Sat, 14 Oct 1995 04:49:08 -0400 

Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 04:49:08 -0400
From: RznDemoPM@aol.com
Message-Id: <951014044902_73949818@mail02.mail.aol.com>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: $100 Billion Giveaway


Stefan Schmitz writes:
> 
> Hi!
>
> I just read your $100 billion giveaway mail. How come that anyone claims
> ownership of airwaves? Not even the government can say it owns them. 

Quite true.  They are what's known as a public trust.  No one can own 
them.  And thus, since the government doesn't own the airwaves, it can't 
auction them off either.  What it can -- and ought to -- do is preserve 
them as a public resource to be used in the public interest.  Public 
benefit non-profits are the most natural vehicle for this in the existing 
scheme of things.  They are regularly used to manage public trusts in the 
arts, education, conservation, etc.

Ownership of property is just one model of social organization.  It 
certainly has its place.  But natural public goods -- air, water, and 
spectrum among them -- do not fit that model very well.  Back in the 
20's, even conservatives like Herbert Hoover realized this.  

Paul Rosenberg
Reason & Democracy
RznDemo@aol.com

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