Virtual Liberty; M. Estabrook

But while the importance of liberty to technological progress is well documented, the way in which such progress advances freedom is seldom noted. Yet technology is increasingly giving each of us· more power-to make more choices and control more aspects of our lives. The Internet, in particular, provides a compelling example of how liberty and technology foster and reinforce each other. About the Internet Development of the Internet began in the 1960s as a project of the Defense Depart ment's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which envisioned a decen tralized computer network capable of func tioning even if parts of it were damaged by a nuclear attack. By the end of the 1970s, links developed between ARPANet and counterparts in other countries. The net work expanded rapidly throughout the 1980s, when universities, research compaMr. Estabrook is Manager for Education and Training at the Center for Market Processes in Fairfax, Virginia.

nies, and government agencies began to connect their computers to this worldwide net. Today, what we call the Internet is a vast "meta-network" of 50,000 computer net works in 90 different countries. Thirty mil lion people access the Internet through tele phone lines and personal computers, send electronic mail, download computer soft ware, buy products, and gather news and information. This number has been increas ing by about 10 percent each month. Although the Internet began as a govern ment project, it has evolved far beyond its original design. In so doing, it has bolstered one of Hayek's principal arguments for freedom: complex orders may emerge with out coercive central planning. No one planned the Internet as it is today, and no single body governs it. Yet there is order within the Internet's ' 'consensual anar chy." In Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Hayek suggests that "society can only exist if . . . rules have evolved which lead indi viduals to behave in a manner that makes social life possible." No different are cyber space societies. Certain rules ofjust conduct ("Netiquette") have evolved and become universally accepted-and are even ex plained in books on using the Internet.

Just as market interactions led to the development of rules in the absence of governmental regulation, market forces have also begun to address some of the problems that have emerged as the Internet has grown. Many have complained, for instance, that the Internet is too confusing 80 for non-hackers to use productively. But getting on-line becomes easier each day and bookstores feature a large selection of how-to books, such as Internet for Dum mies. On-line services like CompuServe now offer easy-to-understand interfaces. And an increasing array of software" search engines," sometimes called "spiders," is available for those who directly access the Internet. A thornier issue is on-line pornography. How do parents insulate their children from offensive materials without infringingon the rights of others to disseminate or view it? Again, while politicians mull over the issue, the market is responding. Most popular on-line services, like America On-line and Prodigy, give parents the power to restrict their children's access to objectionable ma terial. Software is in development to enable parents to identify and avoid offensive ma terial. Without rules and regulations, the market process is discovering solutions to important problems.

In short, the Internet provides powerful proof that a complex, adaptive order can evolve without conscious design. In Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Hayek presents several examples of such' 'grown," or spon taneous, orders. In the world of nature, he cites crystals and snowflakes; both will develop under the proper conditions, but cannot be consciously created molecule by molecule. In human civilization, Hayek points to the emergence of language and currency. Both developed, unplanned, over generations. Yet these examples, while in teresting, fail to convince many people of the feasibility of grown orders. After all, human beings are considerably more com plex than the particles that compose snow flakes and crystals. How can we be sure that human beings, each of whom has unique motives and ambitions, will behave in an orderly fashion? The examples of language and money are no more persuasive; their evolution is so slow that we can scarcely perceive it.

The Internet, however, demonstrates that an order can develop not only in nature, but in human civilization. And it continues to 81 evolve and adapt at an astounding rate in the absence of government regulation, let alone central planning. The Internet and Freedom The Internet's importance is not limited to illustrating spontaneous order in operation. The Internet, and technological develop ment in general, enhances personal freedom by facilitating the spread of information and ideas. Throughout history, the free flow of information has led to significant social and political change. Johann Gutenberg's inven tion of movable type printing enabled ideas to be circulated widely and cheaply for the first time. This free flow of ideas was a critical catalyst for the Protestant Reforma tion. In the 1980sthe desktop computer and fax machine played an important role in the process that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 1995, Time magazine reported that Iran is facing a "potential revolution,"

now that Iranian scholars have gained ac cess to the ideas of Shakespeare, Mill, and other Westerners through the Internet. The Internet provides not only access to information and ideas, but the power to distribute them as well. Gutenberg's print ing press reduced the costs of sharing infor mation a thousandfold. Innovations such as the photocopier and desktop publishing have further reduced these costs, enabling even individuals to produce professional documents inexpensively. The Internet takes this information revolution even fur ther; now, one doesn't even need paper to publish his ideas widely. Empowering peo ple in this way has reduced the influence of the traditional media. For years, information on world affairs came from a limitedarray of sources: the Big Three networks, a few national radio syn dicates, and several large newspapers and news services. That has begun to change.

Cable brought with it CNN and C-SPAN, and a host of other stations that cater to the varied tastes and needs of segments of the population. Talkradio has emerged as a new forum through which people can express their views. And now the Internet, with its Information Age Perhaps most important, the Internet is providing the means for ordinary citizens to subvert long-existing power structures, es pecially the taxes, tariffs, and regulations imposed by governments. In Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third 82 THE FREEMAN • FEBRUARY 1996 host of real-time chat conversations, E-mail Wave, Alvin and Heidi Tomer contend that lists, and newsgroups, offers new ways for we are entering' an age in which "informa people to share information. In the words of tion increasingly substitutes for bulk raw Wall Street Journal editorial writer John materials, labor, and other resources" and Fund, "The Old Media will wind up on the "knowledge-based technologies are reduc scrap heap of history. " ing the need for capital per unit of output in The Internet also allows each individual a capitalist economy." As businesses rely to choose his own community. Typically, increasingly on human capital (knowledge when we think of community, we think of and information) and less on physical capi the people who live in our apartment build- ' tal, tariffs become increasingly irrelevant.

ing or neighborhood, but the Internet allows Likewise, entrepreneurs may establish us to converse with whomever we please. banks and investment firms wherever the Technology makes it almost as easy to, tax and regulatory burdens are least oppres communicate with someone in Japan as sive, and continue to serve customers any someone around the block. The Internet has where in the world. At least one enterprise therefore fostered the growth of new, virtual offers Internet users the opportunity to gam,communities that are not bound by arbitrary ble legallyon sportingevents. Based offshore, physical borders, but by common interests, it is not subject to the laws which forbid such goals, and values. Internet communities can operations in most of the United States. be as tightly knit as geographically based Lofty purposes? Not always, but the communities. For example, the Internet Internet, by facilitating the spread of infor proved the only effective channel of commation, is restoring power to individuals to munication between survivors of the Kobe make choices that affect their own lives and earthquake in Japan and their friends and undermining state interference in the pro families around the world. In the United cess. How will governments respond to this States, several pages emerged on the World rapid decentralization of knowledge and Wide Web hours after the Oklahoma City power? Perhaps they will be forced to com bombing, documenting the destruction and pete with one another to create friendlier offering help and support to those in need. environments for trade. The result could be And before the evening news had an-governments with simpler, less burdensome nounced singer Jerry Garcia's death, word regulations and taxes. Some commentators, had already filtered through the Internet, to like Wired magazine contributor Jay Kin which fans turned for virtual support ney, seem to believe that technology could groups. make government more or less irrelevant.

Kinney suggests that nationalism "will [come to] have the character-the strength and relative weight-of brand loyalty." This may not be far-fetched. After all, the state's regulatory machine is likely to run at least a step behind an adaptive spontaneous order that taps the knowledge of all its participants. That is a sight, no doubt, that Hayek might well have applauded. D THEFREHvfAN IDEASON UBERTY No, Fred, There Is No Free Enterprise At Least Not Here by Mark Ahlseen E ach passing year results in more gov ernment regulation and control over private sector production. It has become increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs to gain official approval to initiate and sustain an enterprise. Such impediments are a form of what Frederic Bastiat called legal plun der-when "the law takes from some per sons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong" or "benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."