[governance] rights based approach to the Internet

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com]
> What a "Right to the Internet" does is to establish that a public good
is
> understood to be realized through the Internet being made available to
ALL
> within the community.
> 
> How it is delivered or how this availablilty is practically ensured
(by
> the State; by the private sector through incentives, regulation,
Public
> Private Partnerships; NGO's; or other) really doesn't matter.

Oh but it does. There is this little thing called the budget constraint.

It means that society has many, many things that it wants and needs but
perhaps not enough money in the treasury to get them all. So you have to
choose. 

Articulating a right to Internet in that case could mean cutting back on
the right to health care or education or some other good. Or it may mean
restricting freedom of choice; in setting up subsidy schemes for the
favored good, one can create a kind of economic protectionism or
inappropriate restrictions on human behavior in order to preserve the
subsidy or protect the institutions delivering the subsidy. 

This is why I don't like it when people confuse _policy_ with _rights_.
If you say, "we should have a policy of promoting Internet access," fine
-- one can then enter into reasonable negotiations and budget
allocations regarding how much of the state's or private actor's
resources are to be committed to one goal versus another. And you don't
lose sight of the question whether the policy actually succeeds in
promoting internet access. But if one says one has a "right" to a
service, the production and consumption of which inherently draws
resources away from other things, then one cannot make a rational
decision about relative levels of resource allocation. And the rights
language also encourages one to forget about whether the policy used to
achieve greater levels of access is effective and efficient. Just look
at what you said above - "really doesn't matter" how you do it. 

> 
> In a "Rights" based regime the
> Right of the State to support measures for the public good trump the
> rights of private owners to dispose of their property as and how they
> wish. This at least at the theoretical level has little to do with how

> the Internet "grows" etc.etc.

But it has everything to do with how the Internet grows. If the rights
of private owners - who by the way probably comprise 80% or more of the
Internet - to recoup investments in networks or internet services is
regulated too much or completely undermined, then the Internet ceases to
grow. And no amount of "rights" language on pieces of paper will make it
grow. 

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