Steve Bantly: Net neutrality is similar to protecting groundwater
The recent FCC ruling on net neutrality has brought free-marketeers out of the woodwork. This ruling keeps the public airwaves available to all users, and prohibits large communication companies from dominating the airwaves by marketing a two-tiered, fast-track system to the highest bidders.
The conflict between the “commons” (public access to natural resources, like air and water) an private ownership, has continued since America’s founding. The founders were aware of this and wrote the Constitution’s Commerce Clause protected America from foreign and domestic monopolies. Free-market advocates say, “let sellers and buyers determine the market; keep government out of it.” Pro-government advocates say, “at the point where a company controls a market (a monopoly), government should step-in to insure opportunity for everyone.” But where is that point?
A local example is “water farming,” where corporate-backed farming operations sink large, expensive wells (drying-up smaller the smaller wells nearby), then selling water to the highest bidder. They say they have a right to sell water under their land, but the water lies in an aquifers underlying everybody’s land. When a scarce public resource is monopolized by a private entity, then government must step in to insure fairness for all.
This is what net-neutrality does.
Steve Bantly, Merced
This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Steve Bantly: Net neutrality is similar to protecting groundwater."