DISQUS

"For Copernicus, there is only one fool-proof explanation for the movement of the planets and stars: You put the earth in orbit around the sun."

I thought your essay was excellent, Adam.

I was most interested in one line in Lessig's piece, though. He said: "I do stand with the core argument of Code, as any non-ideologue should . . . ."

Is Lessig calling himself a non-ideologue?!

It is impossible to discuss public policy without using ideology. When I hear someone self-identify as non-ideological, I take that as a confession that they are unaware of the role that ideology plays in their thinking. If Lessig fancies himself a neutral analyst - dismissing "ideologues" as such, that's pretty fanciful indeed.

Bankruptcy.

These are interesting comments. We have such an intensely ideological group here!

(EF, your comments aren't terribly relevant because you obviously don't know where I stand on litigation, mistaking me for a Republican. But you do push your ideological enemies together, which is generally poor strategy.)

@EF and Joe, my recitation of the facts may have been poor, so I'll clarify: BofA hasn't gotten a dime from me, and they're not going to. I've had to jump through more hoops than I should to get out of these payments, and I took a little time beyond that to level my criticisms about the company publicly. (It's a good rule of thumb: if a business burns up your time, burn a little more to let your community know about it.)

And Joe, my dissatisfaction here doesn't deceive me into thinking that I would be less dissatisfied under a more heavily regulated regime. The dream of regulation bringing businesses to heel is a popular one, but it's always going to be consumer oversight that does the best job of that.

Nezumi, I have accounts with a credit union, and have been happy there - so far. Well said.

Steve R. - thanks for your fair comment and kind words. I don't think the balance has changed as much as you say. Organizations have gotten larger, but so have the tools that consumers have, and their organizational capacities. There are all kinds of media that one can use to affect corporate behavior, including blogs like this one. The consumer is not alone. It's only upon becoming a flaccid beggar for government help that a consumer grows weak.

I've seen you say before that libertarians should call for companies to act ethically - I think it's implicit in my criticism of BofA that I expect them to act ethically. So I don't disagree with you - I'm just more interested in direct, straightforward honesty, where the term "ethical" tends to import lots of interests I might not care so much about, like whether they have a program for recycling used aglets or other Corporate Social Responsibility fads.

Good times.

You need more practice.

Of course, advertising isn't the only source of money, and money isn't the only incentive behind creativity and innovation. For example, here's a Web site that produces a tremendous amount of interesting content though it generates almost no money from its meager advertising program.

A go-slow requirement in Congress would be better, but you haven't acknowledge at all this point:

If the White House were to implement the promised practice of leaving bills sitting out there, unsigned, after they pass Congress, . . . [t]he practice would threaten to reveal excesses in parochial amendments and earmarks which could bring down otherwise good bills. President Obama’s promised five-day cooling off period would force the House and Senate to act with more circumspection.

Knowing exposure would come to their work before it was too late, Members of Congress would change their behavior. Agree or disagree?

Thanks, MikeRT and Shelly.

And congratulations to you, MikeRT, for packing a few short paragraphs with so many false premises, invalid assumptions, and errors!

@dm - Bills are, of course, available on the Thomas system throughout the process. But the final content of a bill is determined on the floor of the House or Senate just before passage. Especially on the big bills we've seen hurried through Congress lately, there is no public print of a bill as it emerges from Congress and arrives at the President's desk.

I note that the President just signed the SCHIP bill, which passed the House today - obviously he didn't wait five days to do it. There is a copy of the final bill (as passed by the Senate late last week) up on Thomas, but I don't know when it came up, and the practical upshot is that the public didn't get a look at it.

If there were a rule that it sat in the White House for five days, we'd be certain to have a chance to look at the final product - not just interim products or a couple days shot at (in this case) a 280-page bill.

Welcome, Adam.

Berin, I think ALFs are best described as "irregular." In a couple of ways.

Steven - I'd be happy to learn more about this better, vanished time, but I think the evidence shows that economic regulation has generally failed to achieve what its proponents wish. (Granted, economic regulation is a little different from the SEC's role in the Madoff case, but many of the same dynamics apply.) And it isn't just during eras of ideological opposition to regulation, nor is it opponents of regulation that have found this.

In his his recent paper on net neutrality regulation, the Durable Internet, Tim Lee describes how President Carter, Senator Ted Kennedy, and his then counsel (now Justice) Stephen Breyer recognized the inability of much regulation to fulfill the ideal imagined by its authors. A warning to all who *imagine* a regulatory regime for broadband provision that serves us well.

You don't need to look at regulation through an ideological lens to recognize its inability to do much of what people imagine it can do.

Nice post, Adam. There seems to be a theme around here lately - whether the Progressive-era ideal of "scientific government" actually began to die when Stephen Breyer admitted its failure, or whether it just went into hiding for a while.

What kind of insane person posts at TLF on Christmas eve? And what kind of jackass comments on Ch- nevermind.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Thanks, Tim, for the kind words about my C@L post. And thanks, Steve R., for your comment. You won't be surprised that I have a few quibbles with it.

I don't think the anecdotal evidence is as you describe it. The most significant example of non-neutral behavior was the Comcast Kerfuffle, discussed at length on this blog, and it was indeed handled poorly (opaque and clumsy in implementation, poorly explained when revealed).

However, once Comcast's practices came to light, public pressure (read market pressure) brought Comcast to heel and prompted the company to make an arrangement to work with BitTorrent *before* the FCC could even get out of the gate.

That's not an "idyllic" free market - it is the rough-and-tumble free market, which revealed the problem and brought about a cure before regulators even got involved. That's not perfection - just the better alternative.

You're being either inaccurate or facetious in calling the automakers' groveling for a bailout the "best" tradition of the free market. Government bailouts are precisely contrary to the operation of the free market, and every credible advocate for free markets has opposed the various bailouts.

Yes, some advocates for free markets sometimes reflexively slip into defending "business," but I haven't seen anyone support bailouts as part of the free market. Treating the actions or interests of businesses as identical to free markets is a mistake for advocates on either side of debates about regulation.

The Madoff affair could reflect would could happen in an unregulated market, I suppose, but it's what actually happened in a regulated market. He was violating real laws and regulations. A real regulator was supposed to enforce these laws and regs. People who relied on this regulator to protect them were wronged twice - directly by Madoff and indirectly by the regulatory system which they relied on, believing it was "on the beat."

The Madoff story does not point to the pitfalls of an unregulated free market. It points to the pitfalls of a regulated market, pitfalls that people seem amazingly willing to overlook, transfixed by the regulatory system they imagine, instead of focused on what's actually possible or real.

Jardinero1, your comment is perfect: It's either 100% genuine or 100% ironic, and I can't tell which.

If Lessig understood that his effort was fundamentally misdirected, as Cord argues (and I agree), he would not pursue it. So I don't think he understands it.

Cord pays Lessig lots of respect in his post, but I don't think one is obligated to "honor the effort" - much less join in - simply because it is effort. Would it have helped Don Quixote to do a better job of tilting at windmills?

Cord is making efforts to advance the public policies he prefers. Is he owed the same help from Lessig? I don't see how that would be possible.

Lessig is a public intellectual advocating his views. Cord Blomquist is a public intellectual advocating his views. Lessig is not "doing" while Cord sits back intellectualizing. They're both doing the same intellectualizing, and they're in disagreement.

In case you weren't aware of it, Cord is a think-tanker. He works for less pay than he has to because of his vision for the country. He, too, has made a significant life commitment to what he believes in. Larry Lessig and Cord Blomquist both deserve our respect and thanks - but one does not owe the other help. Each should continue to press for what they believe in.

(Errrr, "cure the problem")

(P.S. Disqus sucks.)

Cord is not saying, "It's too hard, let's not try." He's saying, "Money is only a symptom of a power problem."

You can waste a lot of time and energy on controlling money in politics, but you will only cure for the problem when you remove power from Washington.

Lessig should be campaigning for federalism.

Hey, the gang from TechLiberationFront would be delighted to fill any holes in your schedule, and some of us we'll certainly come to the Wednesday gig. (Recommended: upstairs at the Science Club - 1136 19th St., NW - call ahead with approximate numbers and they'll hold the room for you) TLF is a masochistic group that generally doesn't like politicians, but we hang out with them all the time and breathe the same air. (Eeeuuww. Eeuuww.) We can help translate into reality the sweet nothings, bromides, and platitudes that you hear from the politicians and their staffs.