[governance] FW: Towards the Internet as a Global Public Good: A Seasonal Wish to One and All:

[michael gurstein]

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks for raising the issues that you do.  I`m not an economist but in reviewing your comments I realize that I should have mentioned in the blogpost that rather than referring to the mainstream perspective on Global Public Goods (GPG) (as evidenced by the Wikipedia reference), my own thinking in this area was formed largely by the work of a Inge Kaul when and after she was working with the UNDP and specifically on the UN Human Development Report and the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. 

 

In her discussion, rather than seeing GPG as a ``market failure`` counterpart to private (market) goods, as neo-classical economists would have it, she developed (through linking her discussion to Ostrom among others) a ``positive`` perspective on GPG`s as an element in achieving what she calls active policy driven objectives (and specifically linking these with civil society and the broad public interest including in areas of global social and economic justice and environmental management). I believe that her approach to GPG`s is directly consistent with a public interest approach to the global development and ``management`` of the Internet.

 

http://www.yorku.ca/drache/talks/pdf/apd_kaulfin.pdf. (Note that I`ve updated my GPG link in the blogpost.)

                                                                                                          

Best,

 

Mike

 

From: Michael Leibrandt [mailto:michael_leibrandt at web.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 2:43 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] FW: Towards the Internet as a Global Public Good: A Seasonal Wish to One and All:

 

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure if the terminus technicus "public good" actually fits to the Internet. Without digging into a decade-long debate among economists, public goods are usually characterized by being non-excludible as well as non-rivalrous (the Wikipedia article you linked rightly points this out). Even if bandwith continues to grow, it will - technically speaking - never be unlimited. And as we know, bandwith demand usually grows parallel to bandwith supply. So I don't see a chance for Internet usage becoming non-rivalrous. And I also believe that it will always be possible to practically exclude somebody from using the Internet (contrary to public defense, which is often used as an example for being a public good). The important issue about applying the term public good to the Internet is, that public goods - according to mainstream economics - usually come with market failure and the need for governments to step in. To my knowledge, that was the case in the very early days of the Internet when outside of the US government and academia not many - and especially not the telecom industry - believed in the concept of a package-switched network. But today, I don't see market failure with regard to Internet supply. Of course, we are stick lacking Internet supply in developing countries, which is bad enough. But this is based on the low return on private investments, not on the two criteria mentioned above. 

 

Michael, Berlin   

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: michael gurstein <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com>  

To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org 

Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 6:46 PM

Subject: [governance] FW: Towards the Internet as a Global Public Good: A Seasonal Wish to One and All:

 

http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/towards-the-internet-as-a-global-public-good/

 

With my very best for the season and looking forward to a just and inclusive new year.

 

M

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