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One of the key reasons why I think the progressive movement this time has a change, and why it did not in the 1960s and 1970s, is that emerging business models today are based on progressive values whereas in the 1960s and 1970s emerging business models were authoritarian. Google and Microsoft, the web 2.0 world, sustainable energy companies like Nanosolar, and even small raw food companies like Kaia Foods are driving growth and creating new jobs and sometimes even new millionaires. In the 1960s and 1970s, opening up a McDonald's franchise or car dealership, or developing shopping malls, those were the routes to economic success. And so the business vitality at that time supported authoritarian politics, whereas today emerging businesses are supporting a more open form of politics.
This is why what the letter sent out on FISA by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents Microsoft, Google, Sun, and Yahoo among others, is so significant.
CCIA dismisses with contempt the manufactured hysteria that industry will not aid the United States Government when the law is clear. As a representative of industry, I find that suggestion insulting. To imply that our industry would refuse assistance under established law is an affront to the civic integrity of businesses that have consistently cooperated unquestioningly with legal requests for information. This also conflates the separate questions of blanket retroactive immunity for violations of law, and prospective immunity, the latter of which we strongly support.
There is a difference between businesses that openly break the law and use legal tools for profit and profitable businesses who build sustainable and creative ways for society to improve. One set of businesses 'gets' money, the other 'makes' money.
A telecom and/or cable company is basically a PAC attached to a billing service, and there's really no reason that these companies should be privately held. They operate intertwined with government entities, shuffling executives back and forth within high levels of government. The only difference is that instead of providing good public infrastructure, to take one example, Comcast overcharges, lies, and spies, and sends the profit to its executives (who are probably overpaid and stealing from investors). In parts of Europe and Asia, there is better TV, mobile, and internet services, with a much heavier regulatory footprint and much less corporate theft and lawbreaking.
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo actually make products that improve the world, though each of course has their rapacious sides. They operate within the context of somewhat competitive markets, and probably can be displaced. I do not really have to use Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo, but I cannot avoid my cable company. As the web consolidates, this may change, but it is absolutely true that I am wedded to my cable company.
Moreover, in this case, it is AT&T;, Comcast, Verizon, etc which are asking our politicians to treat them as part of and indistinguishable from government, to make them officially part of our national spying apparatus and immune from prosecution from lawbreaking. Perhaps that is the right choice, though I suspect not. If it is the right choice, though then I see no reason that these companies should remain private. They are not creatures of the market and do not benefit from market forces, they are simply part of government. If that's what they want, then they should be treated that way. There should be no more multi-million payday for their executives. |
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