Sender: •••@••.••• (Kurt Guntheroth)
Subject: capitalism and the internet
"Free market" capitalism has the same advantage as the internet; distributed
control. Nobody makes central decisions about load or content on the
internet. Nobody makes central decisions about price in the market.
This single essential property enables freedom like no other. To one extent
or another, government always threatens choice because it centralizes power
and authority. But in the free market, only individual buyers and sellers
agree on price. And on the internet, only content providers and content
viewers agree to share information. No one stands between, saying "this you
may know and this you may not."
It is this essential property that we must safeguard, both in the real world
and in cyberspace. In the real world we must fight to prevent a single
buyer or seller from dominating the market, because then they alone dictate
price. And in cyberspace, we must fight to prevent a single authority from
dictating content, for then they alone dictate the terms of debate and
control what knowledge we may have.
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Posted by -- Andrew Oram -- •••@••.••• -- Cambridge, Mass., USA
Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
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http://jasper.ora.com/andyo/cyber-rights/cyber-rights.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~hwh6k/public/cyber-rights.html
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ftp://jasper.ora.com/pub/andyo/cyber-rights
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