June 9, 2000
FOREIGN AFFAIRS / By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The Young And the Clueless
Wednesday's Microsoft ruling was about a lot of technical matters
-- Internet browsers, market share, the Sherman Antitrust Act.
But if you read carefully Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling
to split up Microsoft, you will see that this case is also about
attitude. In my view, it's an indictment of the attitude of the
high-tech community in general toward government, but it's
certainly an indictment of the particular attitude and arrogance
of Microsoft. Bless Judge Jackson's heart for that.
For many in Silicon Valley, government is irrelevant at best and
obstructionist at worst. For many in the high-tech community, the
world runs on electrons and stock options, and government is
basically an institution of tax-seeking bloodsuckers. The idea
that none of Silicon Valley's innovations would ever have
flowered without the rule of law maintained by Washington or
without the global stability maintained by the U.S. military --
funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars -- is really a foreign notion to
many in the dot-com world. Tell techies that without America on
duty there would be no America Online and they will look at you
as if you were speaking Latin (or Fortran).
No one epitomizes this attitude more than Bill Gates. As far as
I'm concerned, the government had grounds to break up Microsoft
simply for what Mr. Gates did last year -- which was to hire an
army of Washington lobbyists to try to get Congress to cut the
budget of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department while
Microsoft had its case before that department. Think about the
arrogance behind that strategy. How would you feel if the biggest
company in your town tried to use its influence to slash the
funding of your police department, at a time when the police were
bringing charges against that company? That's what Microsoft did.
And that to me is the real point of Judge Jackson's ruling:
Microsoft isn't a threat just because it's big. G.E. is big.
Intel is big. Cisco is big. Microsoft is a threat because it is
big and deaf to some of the bedrock values of the American
system.
Remember, Judge Jackson is a conservative Republican appointed to
the bench by Ronald Reagan. He is not someone naturally hostile
to big corporations. Yet on virtually every count the judge ruled
in favor of the government and against Microsoft, pulling no
punches when he wrote: "Microsoft as it is presently organized
and led is unwilling to accept the notion that it broke the law
or accede to an order amending its conduct. . . . There is
credible evidence to suggest that Microsoft, convinced of its
innocence, continues to do business as it has in the past, and
may yet do to other markets what it has already done in the PC
operating system and browser markets."
It is impossible to predict what effect Microsoft's breakup could
have on the computer market, the software market or the stock
market. But it could not have come at a better time for the
rule-of-law market.
We are entering a whole new era of cyberspace, which is going to
make governance of things we cherish, and the enforcement of even
some basic laws, much more difficult. Look around: Internet
companies are already violating people's privacy to troubling
degrees; new technologies are making it easy for anyone to copy a
book, movie or CD and send it to a friend without regard to
copyright or royalties; e-commerce is increasingly going to
deprive local and state governments of taxes; and the unregulated
universe of cyberspace is making it easy for two students in the
Philippines to send out a computer virus that melts down 10
million computers worldwide overnight.
That's why in the age of cyberspace, government is going to
matter more, not less. And you are going to want the rule of law
more, not less. The danger, though, is that young people --
raised in the Internet age and bedazzled by technology companies
and billionaire geeks like Bill Gates -- will lose sight of this
fact. So too might all their parents with Microsoft stock in
their 401(k)'s.
Don't worry about Microsoft. There will always be another
Microsoft as long as there is another Judge Jackson or another
Joel Klein ready to take on such behemoths when they become
abusive. But there won't always be another U.S. government, as we
know it, if global technology companies grow so big and powerful
that they think they can have their way with Washington, or if
these emerging Internet giants snooker us into keeping cyberspace
unregulated, so they can have their way with us.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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