Explaining Current Inequalities With Incentives, Focusing on the Internet Society

-- By AdithyaMani - 15 Oct 2012

Section I. INTRODUCTION- Law school classes have made me think about a lot of different issues- why it’s so hard for some people to have their day in court, why someone would be mindless enough to not discuss which ship they were referring to in a contracts dispute, or why judges had to use “penumbras” to say that people had a right to privacy. However, the things that really made my head hurt and made me feel uncomfortable were what I saw outside of the law school in New York city- people sleeping on top of subway vents with newspapers covering their cold bodies while there is a black Range Rover (MSRP $80,275) parked 50 feet behind them . Before I could delve too deeply into why this happens on a deeper level, I would remember that I had to finish my reading for Torts. This class, Law in the Internet Society, has brought that level of discomfort to me at least once a week, often more. As hard as it might be to ignore the wastefulness of some and dire neediness of others, thinking about equal access to the network has compelled me to try to figure out why we as a society are where we are- why some, like me, have smart-phones and fancy laptops while others might not know what a computer is. Why some of us have wi-fi networks that we don’t share. The only way I can make sense of it is by thinking of incentives. Not incentives in terms of how much can one profit or hope to gain in monetary terms, but what compels people to intensely focus on gaining for themselves or share even when they may not have much.

Subsection A- The Current State

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” Adam Smith, the alleged father of capitalism, started Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) with these words . Reading this quote as a sophomore in college gave me faith that modern capitalism could help bring up the weakest in our society- if the father of capitalism believed that altruism is real and legitimate, surely others would. After graduating from college through my second year in law school, my dissipated. From 1979 – 2007, the incomes of the richest 1% in our country have risen 275% while those the poorest fifth and middle fifth have risen 18.3% and 35.2% respectively . It would seem that capitalism and modern economics have failed. Modern capitalism suggests that the price for objects is equal to the marginal cost of producing said objects. As Professor Eben Moglen states, sending and distributing bitstreams have zero marginal cost. Then why can’t the poorest among us receive all of the information that the rest of us get from the internet? The simple answer is that some people don’t have the resources to access the internet and the wealth of information that is propagated. But why is this so? What motivates Richard Stallman to form the idea of free software and Bill Gates to try to form a monopoly on software?

Subsection B- Personalities

Professor Moglen has mentioned that in our class, we will look at the personalities and backgrounds of different characters relevant to our network in modern society to better understand why we are at this point in society. The shareholders that may drive a Microsoft or Apple to act destructively and in a way that constrains network freedom presumably are thinking about the next 6 months. Even if those same shareholders are thinking long-term, it may primarily be for themselves and their immediate families instead of what is good for society as a whole. The Steve Jobs that created the masterpiece or the nightmare that is Apple, was either allegedly hell-bent on showing his biological parents how they made a mistake by giving him up for adoption or wanted to create something beautiful to make up for any residual effects of having been given up for adoption. Regardless of what these motivations are, they are motivations and can likely be influenced.

Section II. Shaping Incentives- In a utopian society, the different motivations of each individual would result in something positive for society. However, individuality should be valued and celebrated. Therefore, some destructive actions may result from certain types of motivation. But how does society lessen the effects of these actions? One way is to breed a culture in our society of sharing. A direct method to accomplish this may be to use free software to teach youth how to use computers. The current generation of young people has grown up with the iPod and then the iPhone as the “it” products. If school-aged children grew up using free software and learned the benefits of equal access to the network and received in an appealing package, then they would prioritize those same benefits later on in life.

Subsection A- A potential solution.

Conclusion

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