Religious Right Historian: Net Neutrality is ‘Unbiblical Socialism’
Jackass revisionist David Barton again. This dovetails nicely with his theory that the minimum wage is un-Biblical. Note that Congressman Joe Barton (Derp-TX and apparently no biological relation) has also weighed in.
On his radio show yesterday David Barton and sidekick Rick Green claimed that FCC-supported net neutrality legislation which, as PFAW put it, “ensures that Internet service providers can’t charge higher rates for faster delivery of content,” violates biblical principles of free market, and that they are “socialist.”
It’s easy to dismiss that charge as nothing more than demagoguery, but in fact, the discussion gives us insight into what they (and the tea partiers as well as the slew of potential Republican Presidential candidates who seem to be falling all over themselves to cozy up to Barton) mean by socialism and, ultimately, how they understand freedom.
Most of us understand socialism as a system in which there is no private ownership and all power (political and economic) is centralized in the State; so tea party accusations that any policy they oppose is “socialist” seems, at best, like hyperbole.
But in Barton’s view any move away from what he sees as an unfettered free market, any regulation or involvement on the part of government, is a move toward socialism—and of course he thinks that private ownership and free markets are biblically sanctioned.
One serious limitation of this view is that there are resources upon which free markets are dependent that are not privately owned—what Barton’s beloved founding fathers would have called the “commonwealth.” Companies that pollute the environment while making their products, for example, do not “own” the air into which they pour that waste associated with their production.
The air is “owned” by all of us. So if the company is not required to repair the damage caused by its production process, in a sense we are subsidizing the production cost of whatever they make. Often what is framed as a choice between the free market and socialism is neither.
Net Neutrality prohibits ISPs from charging for internet service based on usage. This seems straightforward to Barton and Green: “what they mean is we’re not going to let you choose who you need to charge more to.”
But it’s not that simple. First, the internet service providers (ISPs) don’t “own” the internet. They own the mechanism for providing access but not the internet itself. Maybe more importantly, though, this is not a straightforward free market question because the ISPs often own both the internet access and the competitive products like cable or satellite TV. So by charging people who use internet streaming instead of cable TV they actually undermine free market competition—in favor of protecting the near monopoly they have had on such service for decades.
And maybe more interesting is the subsequent exchange between Rick Green and “good friend,” Texas Congressman Joe Barton, who’s sponsoring legislation to overturn the administration’s Net Neutrality regulation.
As Congressman Barton tries to explain Net Neutrality he reveals important aspects of how these folks understand freedom in entirely economic terms: