Net Neutrality: Regulating Moral Behaviour?

Net Neutrality is a concept that entered the popular consciousness recently especially with the recent U.S. Congressional hearings about legislation relating to internet regulation. The wiki entry for Net Neutrality:

Network neutrality (equivalently net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.

The interesting angle to this debate is how the internet is being treated as an avenue for not just economic behaviour but moral behaviour as well. During the congressional hearing on net neutrality, Congressman Ron Paul had very interesting insights to share about the moral hazard of stepping into internet regulation:

In a conference about individual rights conducted by the Ayn Rand Center, Dr. Yaron Brook shares his own thoughts on the topic which parallel Ron Paul’s:

Blogger apathetic lemming also has some interesting research and views on the subject here which you should check out for a more wholistic appreciation of the subject.

 I’m not urging you to call your representatives and support this bill, or saying that you should tell them to block it. I haven’t made up my own mind about this.

But I’m dubious about this well-intentioned effort to save us from our Internet Service Providers.

For starters, one of the biggest proponents of the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008” is Google. I like Google, as a search engine, and I’ve heard that they provide excellent customer service.

However, Google’s record on freedom of speech and censorship isn’t all that unblemished. Remember Google’s accommodation of the Chinese leaders’ requirements, back in 2006?

The whole question regarding Net Neutrality is essentially a question of government interference on private individual rights, and especially how government intervention can influence more than just one aspect of an individual’s rights. The quality of the internet has thus far depended on the current freedom its users enjoy.

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Yaron Brook On The Great Depression

In this conference conducted by the Ayn Rand Center, Dr. Yaron Brook responds to a query regarding The Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States. The salient points of Dr. Brook’s talk relate to the establishment and the consequent actions of the Federal Reserve beginning in 1914 which ultimately culminated into the stock market crash of 1929 and the resulting depression. This talk is very timely now that the United States and Europe are entering a contracting phase in their economies in the wake of the crash of subprime mortgages and the bursting of the housing bubble and stock market crashes.

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Mortgage Reform?

In this clip, Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute and Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital explain why the new mortgage reform bill wil hurt housing market and economy. The discussion hints at restrictive regulations in the wake of irresponsible actions of the U.S. government.

Government intervention is contrary to the principles of free market capitalism and the new proposed regulations impinge on individual rights which the essence of a free economy.

In his article: The High Cost Of Washington’s Price Manipulation Policy, Dr. Brook expounds on his view of the need to remove government intervention particularly in the mortgage and housing markets in order to allow capitalism to resume its healthy flow:

Maybe it’s time for a new approach. How about we start thinking of ways to address this crisis by getting the government out of the business of price manipulation–and let prices, from home values to interest rates, be determined by people’s free choices and the law of supply and demand?

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Is The Government Spending Your Money Wisely?

An interesting panel: Peter Schiff author of “Crash Proof”, Dr. Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute, Victoria Barrett associate editor for Forbes Magazine, and Gary Kaltbaum of garyk.com. The panel criticizes the actions of the U.S. government, Federal Reserve, and discusses the future of the economy.

Watch Peter Schiff plug in Ron Paul and Yaron Brook remind the audience of what should be government’s core functions with regard to individual rights under capitalism.

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Liberate The Economy, Not Stimulate

The Ayn Rand Institute is an organization which provides material on the author Ayn Rand’s works and philosophy: Objectivism. Dr. Yaron Brook is part of the Ayn Rand Institute and along with his Objectivitst colleagues, a vocal critic of the U.S. government’s actions to date in response to the economic crisis.

Dr. Yaron Brook explains that the only way government can help the economy is to liberate us from “environmentalist restrictions on oil drilling and energy production”, Sarbanes-Oxley, the “semi-socialization of the health-care market”, the Federal Reserve, and “other forms of government spending”, not “stimulus packages”.

More of Dr. Brown’s thoughts in this interesting article:  Stop Blaming Capitalism For Government Failures

This is just the latest example of a pattern that has been going on since the rise of capitalism: capitalism is blamed for the ills of government intervention–and then even more government intervention is proposed as the cure. The Great Depression? Despite massive evidence that the Federal Reserve’s and other government policies were responsible for the crash and the inability of the economy to recover, it was laissez-faire that was blamed. Consequently, in the aftermath, the government’s power over the economy was not curtailed but dramatically expanded. Or what about the energy crisis of the 1970s? Despite compelling evidence that it was brought on by monetary inflation exacerbated by the abandonment of the remnants of the gold standard, and made worse by prices controls, “greedy” oil companies were blamed. The prescribed “solution” was for the government to exert even more control.

Visit the Ayn Rand Institute here.

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