From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 10:54:56 MDT
--- Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker@ckent.org> wrote:>
> The "libertarian" view is that you don't jam someone else's broadcast
> because you thereby have injured them. Technical standards will grow
> out of companies co-operating for thier mutual benefit.
>
> People have no "right" to do anything that injures another. This is
> the basic theory of libertarian thought. To insist otherwise is to
> ignore the definition of the word.
Quite right, Chuck, but the problem you are ignoring is that of the
left libertarian or Georgist argument, that by broadcasting in a
limited spectrum (as EM is), you have 'injured' me by limiting my
ability to do the same in the same part of the spectrum. If the entire
spectrum that TV sets can receive are used by others, then I have no
ability to broadcast, and my free speech rights are then compromised.
Given such a limited resource, it is then left to decide if the limited
resource should be available only to those who got there first
(squatting the wilderness), or whether it should be treated as a common
property which must then be regulated in its distribution and operation
to ensure fair access (both in broadcasting and receiving) for all (the
tragedy of the commons).
Now, I could produce my own TV set (or simply a converter box) that
receives an entirely different spectrum and sell them to customers. I
would then have to seek out other broadcasters to broadcast in my own
spectrum range to make it worthwhile for people to buy this new
product.
THis is much like the establishment of 'territories' in the US west,
where som legal administration was set up to control, adjudicate, and
record the claiming of land and resources and other disputes between
people prior to establishment of an overt state government.
In an earlier period, like the post revolutionary period, there were
land companies that obtained large land grants of one or more townships
which they then organized, surveyed, cut trails, laid roads, attracted
infrastructure businesses like mills, etc. and promoted the sale and
colonization of the company's land in the original colonies. The Indian
Stream Republic which now makes up much of Coos County in New Hampshire
is an area that was originally settled by a land company which obtained
it's rights to the land by a grant from the St. Francis Indian Chief,
King Phillip.
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