6/07/00 3:20 p.m.
Gore's Scary Internet Plans
What it really needs is benign neglect.

By Dan Mindus, NR editorial intern

l Gore's feel-good campaign speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Monday, proves once again that the inventor of the Internet still hasn't figured out how or why the Internet works.

The speech was billed as proposing a "New E-Government," which would "Reconnect Americans to Public Services and Information." One might wonder why we need to be "reconnected" after eight years of re-inventing government, but that Gore project (which brought us a paper-saving act so crucial to our nation's future that about 20% of every piece of affected paper is dedicated to singing its praises), has been conveniently brushed aside. The Gore campaign's yarn-spinners now insist that we need to elect their candidate because he's the only one smart enough to bring government services into the Internet age. But sadly, his ideas on this aren't much good.

Witness his proposal for "G-Bay," a site that would auction off all equipment the government no longer needs. This sounds like a good idea, compared to warehousing the surplus goods, or selling them to well-connected vendors. But compared to what the private sector would do, Gore's proposal comes up short. Even a sprawling company like General Electric doesn't create GE-Bay; instead, it contracts with firms whose core competency is selling excess supply. (Interestingly, Gore wasn't the first person to think of "G-Bay"; check out the one that already exists.)

The Vice President wants what he referred to in his speech as "our self-government" to be "far more relevant to every American." But the way G-Bay would make the government more relevant is by displacing the private sector. Gore's plan would crush private firms that currently auction government surplus, and it would prevent the competitive, entrepreneurial race from finding more efficient ways to do the job. The Vice President better be very smart, because his proposal requires a mind powerful enough to plan a system as good as what would arise from competitive, trial-and-error learning, where making a profit tells you that you're doing a good job.

The amazing thing is that Gore trusts that process and loves many of its products. He just doesn't understand the logical implications of that trust and that love. Rather than allowing the competitive marketplace free rein, he picks and chooses the things he finds most futuristic about it — eBay, pictures from space, etc. — and tries to appropriate those things for the government. (Gore's speech Monday even included another idea for such appropriation: free Internet access for specified purposes. Goodbye CompuServe; goodbye AOL; goodbye competition. Al Gore is coming to town.)

Gore's desire to have government imitate — and thereby displace — his own favorite Internet ideas indicates his fundamental misunderstanding of how those very ideas come to be. Successes like eBay arise only from a decentralized arena where private citizens are able to identify a need and then create a product to fill that need.

Creativity, innovation, service — these are words rightly invoked in describing the private sector. Smart as Gore is, the government is constitutionally unable to claim those attributes — even if it steals the best ideas from the private sector. Gore promoted his big-government plan by invoking a principle of limited government: that "people are the masters and government is the servant." One could spin this idea Gore's way by comparing it to the notion that the customer is always right. If the customer wants X, then the company should provide X. The metaphor works; but we should remember that companies routinely trample other companies in pursuit of serving the customer. This particular company, however — the federal government — has given itself several competitive advantages, including an unlimited capital supply and the freedom to never turn a profit.

Gore's speech demonstrates why New Democrats really aren't enough of an improvement over Old Democrats. Old Democrats were wary of the private sector; New Democrats embrace it, but as a feeding ground for government. Remember Clinton's first election-year mantra of "investments in the economy"? That sounds like a great idea. Until you realize that he wants the government to do the investing. Likewise, G-Bay seems like a good plan, until you realize that eBay could do a much better job.

Al Gore's acclaimed interest in the Internet is genuine — and that's what's so scary about it, because what the Internet now needs from politicians is benign neglect.