[xxpor]

> I'm unaware of anyone raising a fuss about privately owned utilities (power, garbage service, and communications, utilities are all frequently privately owned in the US and Canada)

That's not true at all. Net neutrality? Muni broadband plans being blocked by the likes of comcast? Infrastructure should be state owned, because duplication is a huge waste, and there can't be a normal level of competition because the start up costs.

[SwellJoe]

Net neutrality?

That's a different issue. That's a question of whether privately owned communications companies should be regulated to enforce some level of fairness or equal access. I don't know any net neutrality proponents pushing for state takeover of AT&T, Comcast, etc. Is that what you're suggesting net neutrality is really about? You think it's a baby step toward state ownership of communications? And, you think that's a good idea? Government owning the means of dissent seems extremely frightening to me.

Don't conflate state ownership with state regulation.

Muni broadband plans being blocked by the likes of comcast?

Again, a different issue. One worth talking about, but not related to whether Comcast should be "collectivized". Do you honestly believe cities should take over Comcast operations within their borders? I hate Comcast as much as the next guy, but, I don't think city governments are going to do a better job than Comcast, generally speaking.

Infrastructure should be state owned, because duplication is a huge waste, and there can't be a normal level of competition because the start up costs.

Evidence seems to indicate otherwise. In areas where there is competition, prices go down, almost universally (including in industries where it leads to "waste", like power and communications). And, I think you're going to be very lonely at your meetings if you start a group pushing for the state to take over currently privately owned infrastructure. That's a pretty extreme position, and one I believe would be very hard to defend given what we know about free market economies vs. communist ones.

[ssp]

And, I think you're going to be very lonely at your meetings if you start a group pushing for the state to take over currently privately owned infrastructure.

I'd show up.

Nationalizing the communications hardware (the towers and cables), then having a state-owned company lease the bandwidth wholesale to private-owned cell carriers, doesn't strike me as inherently a bad idea. It is not much different in principle from roads being state owned.

By eliminating the huge capital requirement to starting a cell carrier such a model would increase competition, not decrease it. The current price gouging on text messaging would disappear overnight for example, if anyone could just resell bandwidth. There would also be secondary effects where the handset manufacturers would not be as pwned by the carriers as they are now, so we could see more innovation there too.

Now, the US Government is very incompetent in many ways, in part because the US political system is so broken, so it may in practice be a bad idea there.

[philwelch]

Nationalizing the communications hardware (the towers and cables), then having a state-owned company lease the bandwidth wholesale to private-owned cell carriers, doesn't strike me as inherently a bad idea.

Other than creating a chokepoint for government censorship of the internet, of course.

[jarek]

> Government owning the means of dissent seems extremely frightening to me.

And corporations, whose intrinsic and only raison d'etre is monetary profit, owning the means of dissent doesn't?

[SwellJoe]

Multiple corporations and multiple local businesses and non-profits owning the means of dissent does not cause me nearly the distress that one single entity with direct motivation to stifle speech owning those means would. Nothing is perfect, because humans are flawed. But, competition helps keep the conflicting interests of large groups of people in check.

I find the notion of one point of control to be frightening, especially if that one point of control is in the hands of the people that the citizens would most need to be able to speak out against. As bad as AT&T may treat its customers, they don't have the power to imprison them or execute them; governments have that power. And, if things are bad enough from AT&T, I have options; none of those options may be great, but I do pretty much always have options, and those options are getting better as providers compete for more of the pie. FiOS and 3G/4G/WiMax have become viable broadband options in many places in the US, just in the past couple of years (I use 3G/4G Internet because I travel full-time).

There is nothing perfect in this world. But, a competitive landscape is safer for little guys like me, than one in which I have no choices.

[jarek]

Without a single entity, a powerful government, breathing down their neck, your multiple corporations would merge or form a cartel, because they can make more money that way.

[SwellJoe]

That's debatable, but it's not an argument against having government and business and non-profits and individuals able to keep each other in check. Again, competition and having organizations with cross-purposes having to work together to peacefully co-exist seems to result in better outcomes for most people. Again, nothing is perfect. But, unchecked power is scary, and a world with only one powerful organization (whether it be government, the mafia, a corporation, or a church) would be a terrifying one (and history provides many examples).

Also note: I have, nowhere in this thread, suggested the wholesale destruction of government and replacing it with corporatism (or whatever you want to call it). I have opinions on those subjects, but I'd rather we stay on-topic.

[wnight]

The muni broadband issue is about towns being allowed to offer free net connections at all. As is obvious to almost anyone, only free access is worth offering because the micropayment problem means you can't collect any worthwhile payment for the service. A town could offer throttled wifi along a main street for a hundred dollars a block - an amount too small to break up among the thousands of visitors over the next years, and this tiny expense could easily pay off in tourist dollars captured, etc.

The telcos want to retain their captive market (the townspeople and tourists) and want barriers on sharing to do so. Remember, every cookie you bake and share with friends is theft-of-potential-service from a local bakery!

As for competition, no. That's clearly wrong. Everyone agrees that the waste from multiple sets of roads would be too much and the state maintains a monopoly on roads, etc - delegating this (toll roads) but never letting go of it.

Some things are natural monopolies. While maintenance of a sewer may be contracted out you don't see many parallel competing sewer systems. It'd be a waste. Heh.

As for what we know about market economies, we know we've never seen a communism that wasn't a totalitarianism from the beginning. Basing anything on a few obviously horribly twisted examples is wrong.

And lastly, don't conflate state ownership with state regulation. You may have to pay for the EM spectrum your wireless ISP uses - because it's everyone's spectrum and you are blocking it from other use, but that doesn't mean the government necessarily has any control over it beyond collecting payment.