[Dialogue] Save the Internet

Mon May 1 19:19:19 EDT 2006

Dear John and colleagues,
Perhaps I need more education on this.  My observation of  
corporations is that their value is money and that they go in the  
direction of either long term or short term profits, and that the  
present trend is that the CEO and those around "him" (very few have  
women at the helm) are raking in the dough and share holders are  
getting unhappy.  I also have noticed that as several authors have  
written when Corporations rule the world that their aim is not  
competition or free market, but predatory practices and markets they  
control.  A recent author outlines how corporations are following the  
Roman Empire model and headed toward trouble.
I've also noticed that corporate agriculture is now producing  
vegetables and fruits that have only a third of the vitamins and  
minerals of less that a century ago and cost more, and that GM  
produced foods hold the promise of controlling food production, since  
their plants do not produce seeds and you will have to buy next years  
seeds from the companies that genetically produce them.
This week Economic growth in the US was pegged at an unprecedented 5%  
while wages for workers were below the rate of inflation, adding to  
the story that corporations are in a race to the bottom so far as  
wages are concerned.  The scandals of Haliburton, Becktel, Enron and  
many more do not inspire confidence in the model of international  
corporations, nor does their ability to buy the political give much  
assurance, especially when they team up with the Religious Right.
Having some knowledge of at least one international corporation in  
the 3rd World that used banned insecticides to spray their fields  
resulting in the sterilization of males working and living in the  
fields among other health problems, and a decade latter their  
conviction in U.S. courts, which resulted in little more than a slap  
on the wrist, and their continued use of the insecticide in different  
areas. Bad people may be at fault but the institution and  
organization of corporations appear to have a large amount of bad  
activities, including the expenditure of 150 million dollars last  
year to discredit scientists in the U.S. who were publishing their  
findings on Global Warming.

But back to my original post, to inform and hopefully get some of us  
to write our congress people to keep the internet neutral.  Right now  
Big Telecoms has prevented advances in the internet driving the U.S.  
from 1st to 16th place in internet access across the world.  While  
many Asian and European nations have broader wireless reach and much  
faster rates of transmission (and lower costs).  We think 5mps on  
broadband is fast here.  Not only are the large telecom companies  
trying to prevent cities from setting up broadband connections and  
wireless applications in markets that these companies won't serve,  
they are also trying to position themselves so they can determine the  
content of the internet and the speed at which various content is  
delivered and would like to put a "postage" charge per email. We were  
able to forestall some of these measures in the Texas legislature,  
which had those bills passed would have crippled business and  
economic development in small and medium size cities.  So please, if  
you are so disposed contact your congress person.

And if I be wrong, please correct me.

–george holcombe

On May 1, 2006, at 5:49 PM, John Epps wrote:

> Hello George and other colleagues who are welcome in on this dialogue.
>
> It's a real treat to be able to clarify some thinking with you. So  
> here goes:
>
> For some time, I've been working with "big businesses." It has come  
> to gall me when I hear people whom I respect and whose values I  
> share speaking as if "big business" were the demonic force causing  
> all the pain we all experience. I'd be the last to claim that  
> business organizations are blame-free, and, to be sure, some are  
> indeed demonic. They are, however, the clear minority. Most are  
> well-intentioned, honest endeavors to make life more liveable.
>
> A clear misunderstanding, which I am opposing in the graduate  
> business course I'm teaching, is that the purpose of business is to  
> make money. That is not true.  Despite the opinions of Milton  
> Friedman, that view is a definite minority among business scholars  
> (yes, there are some). The purpose of business is to create value  
> (i.e.,to provide goods or services that people value enough to pay  
> for), and the measure of its success is profit. As Peter Drucker,  
> Charles Handy, and others say, claiming the purpose of business is  
> to make money is like saying the purpose of life is to eat. We must  
> eat to live, but eating is not the purpose of life. It enables us  
> to pursue a more valuable purpose. We find that helping people  
> clarify the real purpose of their business is very motivating, and  
> touches the desire most of us have to make a difference with our work.
>
> Business organizations, just like religious organizations, are  
> finite, fallible, and clearly imperfect -- just like the best of  
> us. They're neither more nor less to blame for social ills than  
> anyone else. It's just that waiting for the perfect organization to  
> come along would entail a VERY long wait. We make do with what we  
> have, and, as H. R. Neibuhr suggests, we attempt to be the  
> sensitive and responsive part of that organization, working for its  
> continual transformation.
>
> The comment about the institution of slavery is absolutely correct:  
> it was evil. But calling it an institution is pretty abstract, sort  
> of like calling Christianity an institution. It is, in some way of  
> talking, but that doesn't provide anything concrete enough to get a  
> handle on. Anyway, I was talking about organizations, not  
> institutions in that sense. There is a difference.
>
> I totally share your views on the Religious Right and their  
> perversions of morality. I'm not suggesting that morality is simply  
> an individual matter. In fact, business ethics (not quite a  
> contradiction in terms) is an important topic coming more to the  
> forefront after Enron, etc.
>
> So I hope we can put some energy into making good use of "big  
> business" as an ally rather than as an enemy. A useful metaphor  
> comes from the Chinese, "Lure the tiger out of the mountains" as a  
> stratagem. It's built on the insight that when you go tiger  
> hunting, you don't do it in the turf of the tiger. That's the way  
> to get eaten. You "lure the tiger out of the mountains" so that you  
> have a fair chance. In an abstract sense, that means for strategy,  
> if you don't have the advantage, your only agenda is to get the  
> advantage. Anything else is a prescription for failure.
>
> We translate that to mean getting the opponent to become an ally. A  
> silly example is the department staff that wanted to buy an  
> expensive piece of equipment, but were opposed by the finance  
> officer. They had the demonstrator model installed in the office of  
> the opponent, who experienced the benefit and quickly became an  
> advocate. What do you suppose it would take for "big business" to  
> perceive the value of continuing the free Internet? Maybe it would  
> not be the telecom companies that would be the ally, but they could  
> certainly be "outvoted" by other industries that routinely use the  
> Internet for normal everyday operations.
>
> These are just some ruminations, and I'd welcome response.
>
> Thanks
>
> John Epps
>
> At 08:34 AM 4/29/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>> Perhaps you are right, however I have noticed that small people,  
>> of which I am one, can act very immorally in mobs, something they  
>> would not do on their own, and that in 1884 a Federal District  
>> judge in the U.S. made corporations individuals in law.  Also,  
>> there appears to me to be evil conveyed in and through  
>> institutions, e.g. the institution of slavery, which speaking  
>> ethically, goes far beyond what a small person can contribute and  
>> the practices, images, understandings can be perpetuated far  
>> beyond that small person for generations.  The right wing  
>> religious in the U.S. have tried to put the whole of morality on  
>> individual responsibility, which is aptly applied in specific  
>> instances, but they readily ignore these principles as a group  
>> when it comes to issues of poverty and the distribution of wealth  
>> and taxes.
>>
>> Having attempted to work through the political process at the  
>> state level, it occurs to me that all the people I meet are good  
>> and decent folks as people, but when vote time comes their  
>> decisions are made on the basis of corporate interests, which they  
>> even admit sometimes in private not the best thing to do.
>>
>> –george
>>
>>
>> On Apr 29, 2006, at 4:55 PM, John Epps wrote:
>>
>>> George:
>>>
>>> The villains aren't large companies, but small people.
>>>
>>> At 07:17 AM 4/28/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>>>> The following article highlights an upcoming threat to our  
>>>> communication abilities and the first in a series of moves by  
>>>> the large companies to use congress to control the flow of  
>>>> information and make much more money off the internet.  We've  
>>>> had extensive battles in the Texas legislature to prevent the  
>>>> major telecom and cable companies from inserting laws on the  
>>>> books forbidding cities from putting up wireless networks, which  
>>>> have become necessary for small towns to retain their assembly  
>>>> plants and warehouses, since the majors won't serve them.
>>>> –george holcombe
>>>>
>>>> Dialogue mailing list
>>>> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
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>>>
>>> LENS International (M) Sdn Bhd
>>> 5th Fl, Tower 1 Wisma MCIS
>>> Jalan Barat
>>> 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
>>> Malaysia
>>> on the web at <www.lensinternational.com>
>>> email: <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
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>>
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> LENS International (M) Sdn Bhd
> 5th Fl, Tower 1 Wisma MCIS
> Jalan Barat
> 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
> Malaysia
> on the web at <www.lensinternational.com>
> email: <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
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