Currently the internet is the most de-centralized a therefore the freest form of communication. But as many people know, the internet began as a proyect for military intercommunication.
That seems like a good argument to convince people of the benefits of government intervention in scientific/technological research (from an utilitarian point of view), but how could the internet have emerge without the government? Why didn’t the markets (private business) anticipated the potential profit from a technology like this? and where would the internet and communications be today without that governmental intervention?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I haven’t been able to make any conclucion.
For those that are not familiar with the history of the internet:
I believe that the internet would have been invented sooner or later without military intervention. If it weren’t for world war 2, we’ll start with an electro-mechanical version of the internet instead. But alas, I cannot retrieve historical information on the inventor who actually did all of this and more. If my memory serve me correctly, he’s the guy who implemented the concept of hyperlinks with punch cards…If I found info, I’ll let you guys know.
In any case, the market did anticipated the potential profit from a technology like this. Otherwise we wouldn’t have google and amazon. It just takes many years.
Paul Otlet is the long lost internet pioneer who envisioned the internet, along with search engines, social networks, and others. His work is stopped by the Nazis who destroyed thousand of index cards to make way for Nazi exhibit arts.
There you go.
He did lobby for government funding before WW2 but I think Otlet would have found a mean to privately fund his project without the government if he tried. Beside, he wasn’t building his project for military purposes.
You need to look at the principles of these two systems:
States try to push human progress by forceful expropriation of goods, suppression of ideas and arbitrary redistribution of scarce resources.
Markets try to further human progress by voluntary exchange of goods and ideas and distribution of resources according to the most profitable (i.e., according to the most need-satisfying) purpose.
Which one is more likely to achieve mutually beneficial results? Which one is more likely to bring up systems and products that a great number of people will appreciate?
If a state happens to come up with a successful concept every once in a while, does it disprove the market’s superior ability to deliver these, or is it just stochastic necessity that “every dog has his day”?
Based on a very brief research (Wikipedia actually), I’m not sure if this guy could be consider one of the precursors of the Internet as we know it.
I don’t doubt that the Internet could’ve been developed without the government, I’m just asking why the private sector didn’t developed it first.
Jon Irenicus’s answer seems to be right , but in a society without the warfare state, a technology like these, probably wouldn’t have had its origins in the defense industry.
I think that without the state the Internet would’ve taken longer to emerge,but this argument is obviously not enough to support state intervention
I think there will always be sciences and technologies that are advanced more rapidly because of the interference of the state. I doubt the fre market would have developed nuclear weapons and stealth technology to the level we see today. Of course you could certainly make good argument that had there been a free market that the internet may very well have been available in 1965
What use was this military project before the private sector salvaged it? Totally useless, as are most government “products”.
How useful would the Internet be today if the private sector had not been allowed to take it over? If it was still only a government Internet?
That something was invented for the government does not mean that it is the useful part that was produced by government. Remember that the mouse sat in a lab for a long time before Apple made it a useful product.
I agree, and I’d also add that just because something “positive” comes from their coercive redistribution doesn’t make it right. Even though the cloud has a silver lining, there’s still the cloud.
Also, because the government brought it about first, doesn’t mean that they brought it about in the most effective or desirable way. If you think about it, the internet spent a lot of years being only used by scientists and geeks playing text based adventure games (me). If private money built it, the porn might have started flowing a lot earlier.
When government interferes in business to give assistance to one industry it can only do so at the expense of all other industries. Where one side can claim that without government’s hand in the markets we would not have the internet, or as powerful a military, or landed a man on the moon. With the same reasoning the case for laissez faire could be made by claiming that without State interference we may already have found a cure for Cancer, discovered more efficient agricultural methods, and made flying cars. The advocates of government involvement in the economy postulate that the consumer left to his own devices would desire all manner of useless and superficial goods. That there should be a bureaucracy to ensure that the most necessary and essential goods are produced in adequate quantities to provide for the greater good. The problem with this is that bureaucratic decisions are always arbitrary because they are not governed by the motives of profit and loss. When a government bureaucracy diverts scarce resources to a production process by taxing, borrowing, or inflating to pay for it, it deprives private enterprise the opportunity to bid on them into their more desired uses. The only rational way to ensure that factors of production are allocated to their most urgent uses is by the great body of consumers who decide freely by a process of bidding on what they deem is most essential.
Elaborating on what you said, even if consumers did desire frivolous things and little else (to me this speaks volumes about the view of collectivists’ of their fellowmen), the question remains, why should the state violate their preferences and dictate otherwise? You’re correct of course that governments lack the means to rationally achieve their goals even if they had sufficient reason to override consumer preferences and steer them in less “frivolous” directions (chauvinistic space races and putting men on the moon not being frivoious at all, of course.) The only valid way of attaining non-“frivolous” ends is to convince consumers to pursue them and change their preferences. If nothing can convince them, one must ask how violating their preferences will do any good (and of course, if they’re too stupid to govern themselves or hire someone to do the job, it follows they’re too stupid to elect/assent to representatives to do so for them as well.)
The internet as you know it isn’t a result of DARPAnet. It’s a result of the http language - which was private and the rise of the home computer.
DARPAnet though wasnt the first time computers were networked - the technology for netwoking came from supercomputing - in fact IBM did a lot of computer networking in order to make really fast computers in the 1950’s - prior to widespread transistor development.
Notice in the article it talks about UNIX - thats because all supercomputers - even current ones use UNIX platforms because of their networking ability.
So while the gov boosted the net and made it happen faster, it was on its way separate from defense department.
If we were all made employees of the state and the govt was as powerful as it could practically be, then every good from such a scenario would be attributed to the govt. If I plant a seed and it grows and it provides sustenance, then that instance would seem to validate the goodness of the state.
The blacks picked cotton in the antebellum south and that cotton clothed millions. Should they remain slaves?
Does every good created in the midst of hardship validate the hardship?