Internet: Innovate or Legislate ? - by Reihan Salam & Patrick Ruffini

"A McKinsey Global Institute study published last spring found that, worldwide, 2 billion people were connected to the Internet and almost $8 trillion exchanged hands via e-commerce. The United States captures 30 percent of all the revenues generated by the global Internet economy, and 40 percent of the net income. Moreover, the Internet has been a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation. In a survey of small and medium-sized enterprises, McKinsey found that for every job destroyed by the Internet, 2.6 were created. In the advanced countries that were included in the survey, the United States among them, Internet consumption and expenditure accounted for 21 percent of economic growth over the past few years.

For now, the Internet represents the great exception to the rising tide of state-guided capitalism, in which government favors politically connected firms and industries. As Ian Bremmer observes in his ominous book The End of the Free Market, the governments of the world’s rising economies seek to dominate key economic sectors. The global markets for energy, aviation, shipping, power generation, arms production, telecommunications, metals, minerals, petrochemicals, and much else are increasingly being manipulated by state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds."

Note EU-Digest: It is quite obvious that many Governments supported by their corporate "friends" will do everything in their power to legislate controls over the Internet. They are doing this for a variety of reasons, mainly based on their self interest and perpetual survival. No difference in this respect between Capitalist, Communist or Dictatorial Governments. All one has to do is to look at some of the most recent developments on this issue. These included;  the Google, Facebook censorship actions, the US Federal Government Internet Piracy proposal, and the EU ACTA  proposal. These are all infringements on human rights and specifically the freedom of expression and must not be tolerated.

For more: Innovate or Legislate - Reihan Salam & Patrick Ruffini - National Review Online