Of games and grinches

The notion that government intervention should be an act of last resort when markets fail has gained popularity among economists and policy-makers in recent decades. It was Milton Friedman’s credo. There is less certainty about what to do about government failure. The laissez-faire legacy dates back to the 18th century of Adam Smith’s time, but took firm root in modern times here during the Reagan years. Remember the supply-side revolution? Though still not the Democrats’ cup of tea, the free-market camp has by and large triumphed.
Laissez faire is largely mainstream today, meaning Republicans control the intellectual debate that manifests itself in tax cuts and deregulation of industries like the one we follow.
Enter The Wall Street Journal and its disdain for “the spectrum game” played by Morgan O’Brien’s Cyren Call and Reed Hundt’s Frontline Wireless. The WSJ for some reason didn’t take a shot at John Muleta’s M2Z. Perhaps it was an oversight.
For the WSJ, it comes down to the revolting prospect that these programs seek federal favors and otherwise sully the quintessential free-market licensing tool-spectrum auctions-authorized by a Democratic Congress, signed into law by a Democratic president and popularized with great success by Hundt himself as FCC chairman in the Clinton administration.
But there’s more irony. The WSJ seems to view with distaste and skepticism that O’Brien and Hundt have a profit motive in coming to the rescue of public safety. But isn’t making a better mouse trap, creating wealth and new jobs and all the rest that flows from innovation and entrepreneurialism the highest form of religion of the WSJ and American capitalism alike? All the better if it furthers homeland security and societal goals.
Whether it’s lackluster interoperability and broadband connectivity for first responders four years after 9/11, affordable-universal broadband access, or alerting cellphone users of a terrorist threat, a chemical spill, a hurricane or a college killer on the loose, what we have here are huge government failures. So why not quasi-market intervention in the form of public-private partnerships? That’s essentially what Cyren Call, Frontline, M2Z and other controversial proposals represent, not necessarily huge government giveaways claimed by detractors. The proposals may indeed be duds, but there’s a reason these folks smell a business opportunity. It’s the odor of inept government.