The following analysis can also be seen at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jrh29/geneva/locke.txt John Locke and the Privatization of the Internet There is currently an effort by the Executive Branch of the US government to privatize the essential, central functions of the Internet.(1) John Locke (1632-1704) analyzes the questions of property and privatization in Chapter 5, "Of Property" of his The Second Treatise of Government (c.1680-1683). I want to investigate the Internet and its proposed privatization guided by that analysis of Locke.(2) Locke considers the original state of human society before the creation of political institutions. He assumes that the earth and its resources were available "to mankind in common". He wants to show "how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common."(sec 25) This raises for me the question, what is the original state of the Internet and what might privatization mean and do to the Internet. The Internet is less than 30 years old. There are disputes over what the Internet actually is and over its history and potential impact. It is considered by some to be wires and routers and perhaps protocols and the domain name system. For others it is the interconnection of all computers using a particular set of communication agreements called the Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP). It is important for my investigation that I state my understanding of what the Internet is. I will listen to Aristotle who said that the best view of a thing will be gotten if we view the thing from its beginning. For the Internet this approach is crucial because at its beginning the vision guiding its development and its technical principles are clearest. The Internet from its beginning and still today is an interconnection of diverse, independent, packet switching networks. This interconnection does not create a network of networks. A computer network is an interconnection of computers. Instead, the Internet is a meta network, something in addition or "above" its component networks. It is significantly different to interconnect networks which are under different political and economic administrations than to interconnect computers with different operating systems or different character sets. The networks that interconnect to make up the Internet each have their own purposes, system administrations and architectural principles. The Internet itself was designed to solve the problem of sharing resources and communicating among such diverse networks while respecting their differences. The fundamental Internet principle is open architecture, the guiding principle that requires respect for the autonomy, purpose and local sovereignty of the networks that become part of the internet. The technology of the Internet is based on the successful development of computer time-sharing and packet switching technologies. The impetus behind the development of time-sharing and then packet switching was for greater accessibility of computing. There was a fear among some scientists and engineers that the power of computer-aided decision making would otherwise be concentrated in too few hands.(3) The investment that made the original networking and internetworking research possible and lead to time-sharing, packet switching, protocol development, the original hardware and software, leasing of long telephone lines, was all from the public purse. It was mostly US but also British and France government money, some supplied via military budgets. The original vision guiding these developments was to unite communities of human beings via computer communications into an Intergalactic Network as JCR Licklider called it, a vast human- computer symbiosis.(4) The developments that have made the Internet possible were achieved by an international collaboration among computer scientists fostered by a public administration of research projects encouraging openness. Just as Locke sees the original state of people as sharing the resources of the earth in common, I take this public funding, social purpose, and cooperative origins to have created an electronic, public commons.(5) For Locke, things in common are only valuable if they can be used for "the support and comfort" of people. And all such things should be available for the needs of all people. But doesn't the use of some of those things to satisfy one individual's needs require the making of common things into private things (i.e., privatization)? Locke resolves this apparent difficulty by arguing that in the original conditions of human society the things of the earth were plentiful so that "he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing."(Sec 33) Personal use of things in this stage still leaves the whole as a commons. "Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst."(sec 32) Such use leaves the commons intact. Use of the Internet does not require a taking from it either. There is no less of the Internet after I use it than before. And the technology of the Internet is such that no simple use of the Internet adds any but an insignificant cost to anyone. There are enough resources on the Internet and many people who use it, far from taking, are actually contributing something by their use like posting an opinion or answering a question. For the moment the only result of many other people using it at the same time as you, is that you may experience a slightly longer delay than if the others were not using it. But such delay is a result of the early stage of technological development. There is every reason to believe that significantly greater capacity and interconnection are technically possible. So just use or increasing the universality of access to the Internet does not diminish its common or public nature or utility to those already using it. Also, the Internet has the character of a common good. For Locke, in the original state of human society the earth's resources that are needed for human food, clothing or shelter are common goods. Already to some extent but potentially to a much greater degree, each person's well being will also depend upon the quality of his or her access to the Internet. What Licklider and Robert Taylor wrote in 1968 is closer to reality now: "... Life will be happier for the on-line individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interests and goals than by accidents of proximity. ... "For the society, the impact will be good or bad depending mainly on the question: Will `to be on line' be a privilege or a right? If only a favored segment of the population gets a chance to enjoy the advantage of `intelligence amplification,' the network may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of intellectual opportunity."(6) Licklider and Taylor are arguing that to be online will be essential to a full life. If something like the Internet is crucial to human "support or comfort" it is a common good and than in Locke's view people have a common inclusive right to it. As long as people gather from the commons what they need for their own use, Locke says they have a right to what they gather. "Whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others."(sec 30) He argues that small populations and gathering for use gave rise to "little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established."(sec 31) Locke considers property not in the modern sense of private property and ownership but in the sense of having the right of use. Even improvement of a part of the commons through the application of an industrious person's labor leaves enough for others. Therefore, as long as his product is for his family's use and not allowed to spoil, the industrious person has a right to his cultivated area. Likewise, the component networks of the Internet can be developed and improved as much as their local owners and administrators want based on whatever principles they choose without encroaching on the commons of the Internet. That is because what constitutes the commons of the Internet does not get used up or diminished by such improvement but in most cases gets augmented by it. The original goal of packet switching networks was resource sharing. The Internet carries resource sharing beyond the individual network to the whole community of Internet users. So that the increase in resources on any one network is an increase in general, of the resources for all users. The Internet has been designed and developed based on the principle of open architecture. That means that the Internet makes the most minimal requirements possible on the networks that it interconnects. What is required, i.e., what is in common, is the agreed upon protocols (the TCP/IP protocol suite) that allow for the sharing of resources without intruding on the local sovereignty of the component networks. The Internet protocol (IP) creates a pool of unique numerical addresses, currently 4.3 billion. Each network administration which adopts the TCP/IP protocol suite and arranges for Internet connectivity can receive a range of these unique addresses for use by computers within its network. The TCP/IP protocol suite and these IP numerical addresses are the main technical aspects of the Internet commons. But what makes the Internet attractive and crucial in people's lives are the other people. In essence the Internet makes more people than ever before shared resources for each other. And these people make available or point to still other resources available via the Internet or off line. This communication and the transfer of files and information never leaves anything less for other users. The protocols and numbers and what they require are what the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) originally fostered and funded. These protocols and numbers along with all the people and other shared resources are the commons of the Internet. There are also parameters known as port numbers that are common to users of the Internet. And there is at present a domain name system that is a common way to map names to the numerical IP addresses. Up until now the US government has overseen the distribution of the pool of IP numbers and the protocol development process. These along with the oversight of the Domain Name System (DNS) and its central root server system are precisely what the Executive Branch of the US government is trying to privatize, by creating the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Locke has taken us as far as to see that, in his analysis, all people at the origins of human society had a right not to be excluded from the things of life. One's use of the things in common did not exclude another's use of as many things as he or she needed. The right of use was not a right of abuse or alienation. When one's labor improved something, that for Locke gave the laborer the right to a property in what was improved, as long as there remained in the commons other resources for other people's use. That is, the person who added his labor to something had a right to exclude others from taking or using it. For Locke the question of privatization is the question of the right to exclude. At a first glance it is not clear that the privatization of the Internet's essential or common functions is also a question of exclusion. But putting these functions in private hands means that the oversight and administration of the IP number distribution and protocol development process can no longer be at public expense. So who will pay for these and the other added costs that come with the payment of, e.g., a private board of directors? The costs in private situations always get passed onto the end users. Thus use of the privatized Internet will inevitably have a higher economic barrier to scale than if the commons of the Internet remained publically overseen and administered. Also, by its very nature, private control of the development of the Internet will be focused on different objectives than has been the public direction. That can be seen already where the private sector sees e-commerce as more attractive as a goal than universal access to a global communication system. Locke argues that "there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions and a right to them."(sec 36) After the introduction of money there was eventually no longer the same plenty for all, and then exclusion led to quarrels and contentions. The gathering into cities and the introduction of money makes efforts to exclude more attractive to some and requires a response by society. That response is the introduction of political institutions or civil society in replacement of the natural state of society. "The several communities settled the bounds of their distinct territories, and, by laws, within themselves, regulated the properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began."(sec 45) What is the fate of the commons in political society? Locke points out that "in England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce, no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by compact- i.e., by the law of the land, which is not to be violated." The consent of all the commoners is necessary because "after such enclosure, [what's left] would not be as good to the rest of the commoners as the whole was, when they could all make use of the whole."(sec 35) And political society and laws are necessary so as to enforce the receipt of that consent before not after the proposed enclosure that will deny many some previous benefit. Of course the Internet has developed in an era long after political society has taken deep roots but also especially at a time when money and commercial considerations play a large role. That is why the need for a public role in the Internet is so great. As with the English Commons, if the general public interest is not protected, the particular private interests will significantly diminish what is available to the rest of society. The tension between common purpose and private exclusion exists and will cause contentions and quarrels which require procedures in accordance with law for their resolution. By Locke's reasoning, for the common aspects of the Internet to be privatized the consent of all the Internet commoners is necessary. But who are the Internet commoners? It would seem that the Internet users should be considered the Internet commoners. The development and expansion of the Internet to all parts of the world, up until now, has been for public use and not for private profit. But the Internet is composed of diverse, independent and sovereign networks each embedded in a political society determined by geographic location. The question of whose consent is needed to make decisions like whether or not to privatize the essential functions of the Internet needs to be studied, debated and acknowledged as important. But at a minimum, the system administrators, political representatives and the users themselves seem to require central roles in such decisions. And the Internet itself seems to be giving rise to a new political and social phenomenon, the netizens, those Internet users who take a responsibility to spread and safeguard the development of the Internet. Enclosure of the commons begins the process that leads according to Locke to the need to establish national borders. In this process Locke points to help for me on the Internet privatization process. He reminds us that questions that effect people across national borders are solved by "leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the other's possession, ... and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts of the world."(sec 45). The Internet is a commons that today reaches across national boundaries. Its spread too was facilitated by agreements but these took the form of Acceptable Use Policies (AUP). For example, the US National Science Foundation prohibited commercial use of the NSFNET and only allowed interconnection with other networks that had a similar policy. The NSF also required community outreach by those whose connection to the NSFNET it helped fund. Similarly, all the early Freenets that connected up with each other required acceptance by their users of their AUP's. In addition perhaps the continuation of the growth (scaling) of the Internet will require agreements or treaties among leagues of the nations involved. Such agreements are the opposite of privatization. They are in a sense a public internationalization in recognition of the global reach and importance of the Internet. When Locke analyses why privatization is a problem for society, he envisions an isolated island where there is nothing "fit to supply the place of money..." He asks "what reason could anyone [there] have to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family ...?"(sec 48). Unless there were hopes of commerce with other parts of the world to draw money to the encloser by the sale of products, it would not be worth the enclosing. The Internet is a wonderful global electronic commons. But for its own sake it does not appear that anyone or any organization would want it as a private possession. So the questions need to be raised: To whom or to what will the benefit of privatizing the Internet accrue? And what role are such forces playing in bringing about for example the creation of the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN). This private corporation, under a board chosen in secret, has been working since November, 1998 to take over the functions of the Internet still under the oversight and management of the US government or its contractors. It is over a year of ICANN activity yet the secret of how this board was chosen, by whom and for what purpose is still impenetrable. Secrecy is a clue that these are important questions. The other clue is that the supporters of privatization have never been willing to discuss or debate the question of why or how privatization might serve the general welfare. Guided by Locke's theory of property, my conclusion about the privatization of the essential functions of the Internet now being attempted, is that the commons of the Internet should be protected not privatized. Locke suggests that this protection is the responsibility and obligations of governments in league with each other. He writes, "For in government the laws regulate the right of property, and the protection of the land is determined by positive constitution."(sec 50) The history so far of the Internet suggests that acceptable use policies and voluntary gatherings of network administrators with online forums might also play a crucial role. However at present it is especially the US government that has the obligation and responsibility to protect the Internet commons since the central functions of the Internet are for historical reasons under its supervision. Looking at the US Constitution I find in the Preamble six purposes for which the US government is established: 1) to form a more perfect union, 2) to establish justice, 3) to insure domestic tranquillity, 4) to provide for the common defense, 5) to promote the general welfare, and 6) to secure the blessings of liberty to our selves and our posterity. The privatization does not seem to fit any of these six purposes allowed to the US government by its own constitution. The fundamental purpose of the US government would appear to be to promote the general welfare. Locke agrees that all that governments do must be "only for the public good."(sec 3) My analysis indicates that the privatization of a commons is in general not for the public good. So that the US Executive Branch's efforts to privatize the essential functions of the Internet are inappropriate. For Locke, the legislative is the supreme power (sec 132) not the executive. In the US there is a law, the Government Corporation Control Act of 1945, which prohibits the transfer of government functions to corporate entities like ICANN without specific authorizing legislation. Presently there is no such legislation and there have been questions from the US Congress concerning the privatization and the lack of appropriate authorization to do it. Locke points out that should ICANN get "into the exercise of any part of the power, by other ways, than what the laws of the community have prescribed, [it would have] ... no right to be obeyed"(sec 198). That is because it would not then be the body the laws have appointed, and consequently not the body the people have consented to. In such a case, even if some network administrations obey ICANN, there will be others for local reasons that will not. Then fragmentation of the Internet is a likely result. Private property in Locke's analysis is not a natural right but a conventional right based on civil law. A commons necessary for the well being of a people needs to be protected from becoming private property. Locke has an answer if the US Congress and Executive branches and the other governments of the world continue the privatization of the Internet commons. "Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, ... they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." (sec 222) So at least in Locke's analysis, the result of attempting to privatize the Internet on which people's lives are coming more and more to depend will be a greater instability in society. We may not have come that far yet but my reading of Locke puts the privatization of the Internet commons in line with the other violations of the public purpose of government that more and more characterize our time today at the beginning of the 21st Century and that are being met with a growing resistance. ------------ Notes 1. See for example, "Management Of Internet Names and Addresses," (63 Fed. Reg 3 1741-42, 1998) the White Paper issued by the US Department of Commerce, June 5, 1998. 2. My quotes from Locke are from the Everyman edition of Two Treatises of Government, edited by Mark Goldie reprinted in 1998. I indicate after each quote the section in "The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Origin, Extent, and End of Civil Government" from which it is taken. My analysis has benefited from a reading of A Discourse On Property: John Locke and His Adversaries by James Tully, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980. I take from this reading the understanding that Locke used the unqualified word 'property' to mean the right to use of, not ownership in the modern sense of property. Then the things of the commons can be someone's property in the sense that he or she has the right to use them to the exclusion of other people's use as long as there are still in the commons resources to meet the needs of the other people. 3. For the documentation of these concerns among the scientific and engineering community see Computers and the World of the Future, edited by Martin Greenberger, MIT Press, Cambridge Ma., 1962. This book of lectures and discussions from MIT's Centennial Celebration in 1961 contains the keynote address by C.P. Snow and contributions from many of those who went on to play significant roles in the development of time-sharing, packet switching and networking. For an analysis of the impetus for these developments see Chapter 6, "Cybernetics, Time-sharing, Human-Computer Symbiosis and Online Communities: Creating a Supercommunity of Online Communities," by Ronda Hauben in Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Los Almitos, Ca. IEEE Computer Society Press, May 1997. Also this theme is explored in "The Internet: History, Technical, Principles, Social Impact", an Horizons mini-course offered at Columbia University. 4. See, "Man-Computer Symbiosis", in IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics HFE-1, March, 1960, pages 4 to 11. Also reprinted in In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider 1915-1990, Aug. 7, 1990, p. 40, Digital Research Center. 5. See Michael Hauben, "Preface", in Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Los Almitos, Ca. IEEE Computer Society Press, May 1997 . 6. In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider 1915-1990, Aug. 7, 1990, p. 40, reprinted by Digital Research Center; originally published as "The Computer as a Communication Device," in Science and Technology, April, 1968. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Jay Hauben 5/15/2000
