We’re at a point where we ought to just liberate the market and let the technologies sort themselves out over the next 10 or 15 years … Then, maybe, we revisit the question of whether you need regulation. In the near future, though, we should be driving for as little regulation as possible.
Predictor: Gingrich, Newt
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, John Heilemann quotes Newt Gingrich, at the time the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, discussing a white paper titled “The Telecom Revolution – An American Opportunity,” which was unveiled in the summer of 1995 at a “Cyberspace and the American Dream” summit in Aspen that was attended by John Perry Barlow, Stewart Brand, Esther Dyson, Alvin Toffler, Nathan Myhrvold, Marc Porat, John Gage and many other technology luminaries. Heilemann writes: ”Here, in 110 pages, is the most coherent statement available of state-of-the-art conservative thinking on communications policy. At its heart is a doctrine of rapid, radical deregulation. The FCC would be torn down and replaced with a tiny office in the executive branch – a headline-grabbing proposal which, if all the rest of the report’s recommendations came to pass, would not seem terribly controversial. Cable-rate regulations? Gone. Cross-ownership restrictions between cable and broadcasting and between broadcasting and newspapers? Foreign-ownership restrictions? Gone, gone. Subject to antitrust review, phone companies could buy cable companies, even in their home regions. Spectrum would be privatized. Universal service would be replaced by smaller, targeted subsidies to the poor. Television regulations on children’s programming would be history. And so on, and so forth. Is the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s manifesto Newt Gingrich’s vision? ‘I helped inspire it,’ says the Speaker, ‘and from what I’ve read, it sounds like the general direction we should be heading … Look, I think it’s pretty clear we’re at a point where we ought to just liberate the market and let the technologies sort themselves out over the next 10 or 15 years … Then, maybe, we revisit the question of whether you need regulation. In the near future, though, we should be driving for as little regulation as possible … Ask Gingrich how the government can best fuel investment in all things cyber, and he cites the money sloshing around Silicon Valley, then concludes: ‘Get out of the way.’ Ask him whether deregulation will wind up costing consumers, and he tells you about PC price wars. Mention monopolies and he lectures you about IBM. ”
Biography:Newt Gingrich was a U.S. Congressman and the Speaker of the House of Representatives who was known to be so tech-savvy that Wired magazine ran stories on his tech policy positions. He opposed Senator Exon’s controversial Communications Decency Act. (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Open Access
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: The Making of The President 2000: America’s Futurist Politicians, Al Gore and Newt Gingrich, are Engaged in an Epic Struggle: the Last Time a Battle of This Magnitude Occurred, the New Deal Laid the Foundation of the Modern, Industrial, Bureaucratic State
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.12/gorenewt_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney