I cannot recommend too highly Thomas Hazlett's Political Spectrum (read a review here: https://www.hoover.org/research/how-electromagnetic-spectrum-became-politicized). Among other things, I learned that Herbert Hoover, as Commerce Secretary in 1927 before becoming President, was behind the creation of the FCC to allocate the radio spectrum as public property just at the time the courts were beginning to recognize a private property interest in that same radio spectrum, at the behest of the cronies who owned the new radio networks. FCC creation included the basis for the equal time nonsense and requiring stations operate in the public interest.
Note: private property radio spectrum is no more incompatible with reserving various bands for the military, airplanes, emergency responders, and so on that is reserving property for military bases and national parks.
Franklin Roosevelt used the FCC to stop radio stations from airing opinions contrary to the New Deal. So just as Democrats fear another Trump, Republicans should fear another Roosevelt. (Details at https://reason.com/2017/04/05/roosevelts-war-against-the-pre/)
I think the feeling among Republicans at this point is "we already had an FDR, and it's clear the Democrats will defect whenever they have power, thus there is no reason for us to cooperate".
Yes, it's been a bipartisan disaster. I think that book says several hundred stations lost their licenses for not conforming to the new FCC's idea of public interest. The cronyism was especially strong in those early days. I don't know about Ike and Reagan, but JFK/LBJ/Nixon all threatened licenses.
The only real flaw in the book is how repetitive it gets describing one episode of FCC meddling after another. But what made my blood boil the most was how the Supreme Court just rolled over and let the legislature define away the common law property interest of the lower courts, and keeps on using that to override the First Amendment.
What is "the public interest"? I hear journalists use this phrase to justify their rubbernecking. Journalists have a clear motivation to pry into anyone's business so long as it's likely to attract an audience. But is public interest a real thing? And if it is, why is it in the wheelhouse of journalism rather than, say, some official communication body like the one that controls tornado sirens or those dynamic messaging signs over the freeway?
Canada auctions off the cell phone and internet spectrum. The stuff sells for billions of (Canadian) dollars. Cell phone rates and monthly internet is therefore expensive to make a return on that valuable asset. Politicians and critics then blame capitalism or greedy providers for the world's highest monthly charges. The Federal treasury laughs all the way ....
Friends point out how cheap cell phone or internet is in some selected east European country compared to ours, emphasizing that theirs is a public (ie, government owned) phone system, without noting that the government is interested in giving their citizens affordable internet rather than the auctioning-off-greedy-bastards in Ottawa who are anxious to spend our money better than we could.
One of the peculiarities of history is that spectrum was quickly declared to be public property, and the First Amendment was not applied to it, but later on, Internet communication was assimilated to "speech" and "the press." I'm not sure what changed, politically or intellectually, to make the difference.
I was describing the solution in our society. I discussed how it might work under A-C in my response to Fernando.
Suppose that doesn't work. It doesn't demonstrate the impossibility of A-C, only that there us one thing A-C does less well than a state. I discuss others in _Machinery_ as examples of market failure in the market for law.
But wouldn't this still need a government to auction the frequencies and a government to make sure no two people are using the same frequency to broadcast different content? How would this work in a world like the one proposed in The MAchinery of Freedom?
Good question. That is from Chapter 1. The anarchy only starts with Chapter 28.
In principle the answer is the same as for other forms of property rights. The problem is that the property is less local than land. To enforce property rights for a frequency range over the whole country you would need agreements among all rights enforcement agencies.
More plausibly, the agencies in one region could agree, not try to enforce claims beyond that. There is then a problem with overlap.
Instead of auctioning off you could recognize transferable ownership by whomever had been broadcasting on that frequency in the past.
The auction would presumably be a one-time event. TMoF might describe how it could be run, but auctions are relatively non-controversial. It probably won't bother anyone if the government specifies reasonable periods for bidding. The main issue would probably be properly defining what's being auctioned - the right to broadcast at a given frequency, plus or minus some mHz, over a given geographical region.
Enforcement a la TMoF would likely use rights enforcement agencies (REAs). The book goes into some detail on how they work.
I cannot recommend too highly Thomas Hazlett's Political Spectrum (read a review here: https://www.hoover.org/research/how-electromagnetic-spectrum-became-politicized). Among other things, I learned that Herbert Hoover, as Commerce Secretary in 1927 before becoming President, was behind the creation of the FCC to allocate the radio spectrum as public property just at the time the courts were beginning to recognize a private property interest in that same radio spectrum, at the behest of the cronies who owned the new radio networks. FCC creation included the basis for the equal time nonsense and requiring stations operate in the public interest.
Note: private property radio spectrum is no more incompatible with reserving various bands for the military, airplanes, emergency responders, and so on that is reserving property for military bases and national parks.
Franklin Roosevelt used the FCC to stop radio stations from airing opinions contrary to the New Deal. So just as Democrats fear another Trump, Republicans should fear another Roosevelt. (Details at https://reason.com/2017/04/05/roosevelts-war-against-the-pre/)
I think the feeling among Republicans at this point is "we already had an FDR, and it's clear the Democrats will defect whenever they have power, thus there is no reason for us to cooperate".
Yes, it's been a bipartisan disaster. I think that book says several hundred stations lost their licenses for not conforming to the new FCC's idea of public interest. The cronyism was especially strong in those early days. I don't know about Ike and Reagan, but JFK/LBJ/Nixon all threatened licenses.
The only real flaw in the book is how repetitive it gets describing one episode of FCC meddling after another. But what made my blood boil the most was how the Supreme Court just rolled over and let the legislature define away the common law property interest of the lower courts, and keeps on using that to override the First Amendment.
What is "the public interest"? I hear journalists use this phrase to justify their rubbernecking. Journalists have a clear motivation to pry into anyone's business so long as it's likely to attract an audience. But is public interest a real thing? And if it is, why is it in the wheelhouse of journalism rather than, say, some official communication body like the one that controls tornado sirens or those dynamic messaging signs over the freeway?
Canada auctions off the cell phone and internet spectrum. The stuff sells for billions of (Canadian) dollars. Cell phone rates and monthly internet is therefore expensive to make a return on that valuable asset. Politicians and critics then blame capitalism or greedy providers for the world's highest monthly charges. The Federal treasury laughs all the way ....
Friends point out how cheap cell phone or internet is in some selected east European country compared to ours, emphasizing that theirs is a public (ie, government owned) phone system, without noting that the government is interested in giving their citizens affordable internet rather than the auctioning-off-greedy-bastards in Ottawa who are anxious to spend our money better than we could.
The US auctions off frequencies for cell phone use as well.
One of the peculiarities of history is that spectrum was quickly declared to be public property, and the First Amendment was not applied to it, but later on, Internet communication was assimilated to "speech" and "the press." I'm not sure what changed, politically or intellectually, to make the difference.
I believe the underlying cause was that spectrum space was a lot more scarce than internet space.
"Convert the airwaves to private property. Let the government auction off the right to broadcast at a particular frequency"
Doesn't this proposal demonstrate the impossiblity of anarcho-capitalism?
You shouldn't need to have Government create private property. The logic of the thing should dictate assignment ofproperty given anarchism.
I was describing the solution in our society. I discussed how it might work under A-C in my response to Fernando.
Suppose that doesn't work. It doesn't demonstrate the impossibility of A-C, only that there us one thing A-C does less well than a state. I discuss others in _Machinery_ as examples of market failure in the market for law.
But wouldn't this still need a government to auction the frequencies and a government to make sure no two people are using the same frequency to broadcast different content? How would this work in a world like the one proposed in The MAchinery of Freedom?
Good question. That is from Chapter 1. The anarchy only starts with Chapter 28.
In principle the answer is the same as for other forms of property rights. The problem is that the property is less local than land. To enforce property rights for a frequency range over the whole country you would need agreements among all rights enforcement agencies.
More plausibly, the agencies in one region could agree, not try to enforce claims beyond that. There is then a problem with overlap.
Instead of auctioning off you could recognize transferable ownership by whomever had been broadcasting on that frequency in the past.
"Whole land"?
Geographic limits to territory don't emerge out of anarcho-capitalism, do they?
There will a limit to the stateless area, unless it is the whole planet. I would expect a rights enforcement agency to operate in a limited territory.
Thing is, as A-C rules out application of force to settle disputes such as territorial dispute, there is no way in A-C to define boundaries.
The NAP rules out aggression, not defense.
Trespassing is aggression.
Political boundaries have emerged out of wars, out of disputes which are, in principle, not capable of being resolved otherwise.
The auction would presumably be a one-time event. TMoF might describe how it could be run, but auctions are relatively non-controversial. It probably won't bother anyone if the government specifies reasonable periods for bidding. The main issue would probably be properly defining what's being auctioned - the right to broadcast at a given frequency, plus or minus some mHz, over a given geographical region.
Enforcement a la TMoF would likely use rights enforcement agencies (REAs). The book goes into some detail on how they work.