...Good Luck With That!

by the Daily Bell

It began as a technological highway created by the Pentagon's DARPA to link together military researchers with university libraries, etc. The email facility helped expand the system. Then two Steves in a garage created the personal computer and the facility exploded. It was never meant to be what it became. It is a perfect example of the unintended consequences illustrated in free-market economist FA Hayek's spontaneous order. It has given the modern-day Anglo-American elite fits. Senator Jay Rockefeller said in open session that it might have been better if it were never invented. Better for whom?

The elite would take it down if it could. Alternatively, those who have the most to lose (or have lost the most) will try to control and it explain it. They might as well try to rake the wind instead of the leaves. Here's an example of the ups and downs of the Gutenberg press in Britain, to which we have often compared the Internet. There was no real way to contain it at the time, though the powers-that-be surely tried:

English newspapers were among the first in the world to use headlines to attract readers and woodcuts to illustrate stories. English newspapers also set new business standards. They hired women as reporters, printed advertisements as a source of revenue, and paid newsboys, or more commonly newsgirls, to sell papers in the streets.

The fledgling English press faced censorship throughout much of the 17th century. Early newspapers called diurnals – the predecessors of the today's dailies – featured news from all over Europe and occasionally America or Asia. However, government officials discouraged reporting on local matters. In addition, the government tightly regulated print shops. In England, as in most other European countries, the government required printers to have licences to print the news. Printers could lose their licences if they published anything offensive to authorities.

The first major change in this arrangement came in the years before the outbreak of the English Civil War (1642-1648). As Parliament, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, struggled with King Charles I, national news assumed a new importance ... The first English newspaper to attempt to report on national news was The Heads of Several Proceedings in This Present Parliament, a weekly that appeared in 1641. The public's appetite for domestic news grew steadily, and soon a number of papers covered national politics and other previously censored topics ...

After the monarchy was restored under King Charles II in 1660, the government gradually ended licensing provisions and other restrictions. The English press published in an atmosphere of considerable freedom – as long as it did not criticize the government. During the upheaval of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 (when Parliament deposed King James II in favour of William of Orange) the English press burst free of nearly all government restrictions. The law that required printers to obtain licences lapsed in 1695. Belief in the right of the press to question and criticize government eventually took hold in England and migrated to its American colonies. (Newspapers, Encarta Encyclopedia)

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