On the Role of Government

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

So, I was reading a rather bizarre piece about the ongoing talks between musicFIRST, a group that represents music rightsholders (including the RIAA), and the National Association of Broadcasters, the radio lobby. Basically they're coming close to an agreement. musicFIRST wants the NAB to pay for broadcasting music, and the NAB is resisting this. All in all it looks like a fairly straightforward civil suit in the making, if mediation fails. musicFIRST stops allowing radio to play its music without royalties, and radio sues for... something or other that I'm sure their creative lawyers would come up with to save the entire industry.

Except they're no longer arguing about that. Instead, musicFIRST is bartering its support for a bill to include FM chips in all cell phones and mobile electronics for $100 million per year - less than the radio stations would pay under a full-on royalty scheme. So they had an argument over what to pay, and decided on forcing an entirely unrelated industry to drastically change its production standards and include possibly problematic (and definitely outdated) technology to ensure that radio stays in place to keep giving musicFIRST money.

This got me to thinking over the role of government. One popular argument is that government exists to act as a mediator between special interest groups. This looks like one instance of that gone off the rails. Government here isn't a mediator - it's a bargaining chip, its power over others used by two unrelated parties to come to an agreement between two antagonistic parties.

Me personally, I never bought the "mediator" argument. Government is there to balance competing interests, but not those presented to it by corporate supplicants who come with a fully-crafted legislative plan for Congress to sign off on. The same thing can be seen in the Google-Verizon proposal. There, two of the biggest players in the space come up with solutions based on their interests and needs, and present it for sanction as public policy. It's hardly a democratic process. The interests balanced should always be those of the public vs. those who are restricted or impeded by the legislation. How many people really want an FM tuner on their phone? How would the inclusion of that antenna affect smartphone development? None of that is considered - just getting more listeners for an old medium. The interest groups do a very good job of fulfilling the interests of their clients. Unfortunately, our interest group - the elected officials in Congress - do a pretty awful job of representing ours.

Comments

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Fucking crap, that's what it is.

The interest groups do a very good job of fulfilling the interests of their clients. Unfortunately, our interest group - the elected officials in Congress - do a pretty awful job of representing ours.

This is definitely a problem, and the enabling cause of this is having a government with the power to enforce these things in the first place.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

The interests balanced should always be those of the public vs. those who are restricted or impeded by the legislation.

Agreed.
Government at our end should have said to BP "Ok, you want to go drilling in deep water, in an ecologically sensitive area? Well, come back when you have an agreed safety plan. We don't want a British company to go fouling things up in someone else's back yard, do we?"
And also, the government of the USA were well within their rights to say "Ok, it's our coast you are drilling off of here, not the North Sea. Yeah, we need the oil, but we also have our own fishing industry to consider. So we hope you guys will agree to the operation being looked at regularly by independant inspectors, and you can show us the arrangements you have in case of a big contingency like a leak, or a fire on board".

Sadly, both governments dropped the ball.
But, yeah , the role of Government should not just be a 'night watchman'.
Government should be a referee between corporation and consumer, between any party whose activities affect the public and the public itself.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To be technical government started as certain warlords able to provide services from other areas and keep rival warlords out. We moderns have as basic articles of faith in common with the ancient world that government should keep the strong from oppressing the weak. Unlike Hammurabi and Sargon we have every means to make that actual instead of ideal.

The rich have society itself to safeguard their interests, as free markets will always trend to the side of the rich. Government should be in the Western tradition safeguarding the exclusion and the vulnerable from the avarice and arrogance of the rich. Government should also not render unto God any more than God does unto Government.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

I would love to see campaign-reform as well as the limit of contact between lobbyists and congressmen but we all know that's not happening anytime soon.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I'm torn. On the one hand, I think the fairest method of campaign finance is using public dollars. On the other hand, there are a few logistical problems with it (specifically who gets money when) and it limits the ability of grass-roots support to carry someone. Obama won because he was so successful at grass-roots organization, and Ron Paul made a huge impact with his presidential campaign, much of which has morphed into the Tea Party movement (for good or ill) through the financing of its individual members, not corporations and the like.

I dunno. Campaign finance is one of those things I hate talking about, because I've never been able to reconcile the different viewpoints into what I think "should" be done. But I do know the current model just isn't working. A part of me wonders if it's the model feeding into itself (IE that this is just an advanced degeneration of the pluralist model) that encourages this sort of entitled attitude on the part of corporate interests, or if it'd be this way if we all woke up tomorrow with just the system, and no memory of what came before.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I think there's no particular reason to restrict individual donations, and good enough reason to restrict donations from a group of any kind.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

You'd need to do a fair bit of policing there. What's to stop the groups from paying their employees a huge amount with the understanding that they donate it?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I don't care about that case.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

Then what would be the point of restricting donations from groups?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Because the group can't enforce that the person does anything with the money once they gave it to them, but we can prevent the group from giving it directly. Also, the person giving does not give influence from the group at the same time, so it removes that direct cause of influence.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Seems a placebo to me. If the CEO of AgriCorp Intl is giving you $40 million, odds are you're going to listen to what AgriCorp wants.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

But he still has to convince the millions of other people to vote for him too. And then if he doesn't do what he promised to them, he should get voted out.

So, there are likely some other reforms that need to be done, like some easier way of recalling people when they don't vote as promised. I had some other ideas about that, but I don't think we need to get into that here.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Yeah the issue is I think it's the single most important change we could make-- yet the single least likely to happen. :\ congresscritters like their monies, corporations like their influence. And what, are you going to get lawmakers to change this *without* lobbying? Its like having a gun fight to ban guns, and you don't get to use a gun.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the problem is which part of the constitution is intellectual property law rooted in? Is it in the power of the government to protect people's property, or is it in Congress' power stated as such: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. If it's the latter, then how limited is limited? How is music promoting the progress of science and useful arts? Does it have to be directly or could it be indirectly?

I don't know, but it's a stretch to give the RIAA the power over the people they've had with justification from that clause.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It's pretty clearly from the second, as IP isn't property, it's only made to be similar to property because of Congress' power. Limited is however long Congress wants to make it. Music is a "useful art".

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

What does that have to do with how Congress interacts with interest groups?