I used to think that almost nobody who opposed socialism actually knew what socialism is. That's true but what I've realized more recently is that almost nobody who defends capitalism actually knows what capitalism is. It's just a kneejerk reaction without thought.
The fight by large telcos against municipal broadband is the perfect representation of capitalism vs socialism.
Municipal broadband is a fundamentally socialist idea. The people of a town, city, county or whatever essentially own the means of production, being the Internet connectivity in this case.
Comcat, AT&T, Spectrum, etc perfectly exemplify capitalism: these companies exist solely to extract as much value from the end-consumers as possible while doing the least possible, all for higher profits for shareholders. it is pure rent-seeking and using the political process and the courts to create and maintain monopolies to keep those profits as high as possible.
All of this is entirely obvious within the context of the labor theory of value [1] and dialectical materialism [2].
The last mile should be muncipally owned, operated and maintained and Internet access should be a basic utility like water and electricity.
The fight by large telcos against municipal broadband is the perfect representation of capitalism vs socialism.
Municipal broadband is a fundamentally socialist idea. The people of a town, city, county or whatever essentially own the means of production, being the Internet connectivity in this case.
Comcat, AT&T, Spectrum, etc perfectly exemplify capitalism: these companies exist solely to extract as much value from the end-consumers as possible while doing the least possible, all for higher profits for shareholders. it is pure rent-seeking and using the political process and the courts to create and maintain monopolies to keep those profits as high as possible.
All of this is entirely obvious within the context of the labor theory of value [1] and dialectical materialism [2].
The last mile should be muncipally owned, operated and maintained and Internet access should be a basic utility like water and electricity.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism