Great piece on the homepage by John Fund about the left- and far-left-wing ideologues behind net neutrality. Perhaps the strongest advocate has been a Marxist communications professor named Robert McChesney, who says stuff like “any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist political economy.” John links to a revealing interview in which McChesney sententiously quotes his beloved Karl Marx: “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” — this from a man who still adheres to an ideology that everyone who had any choice discarded a quarter-century ago.

Even net neutrality’s supporters concede that it’s a solution in search of a problem. In today’s New York Times, in a piece strongly supporting net neutrality, Steve Lohr sets forth a nightmare scenario in which some consumers might have just a single broadband supplier available to them for a few years. Pretty scary, huh? But then he blithely goes on to explain that “the new rules will not ensure competition from new entrants.” Okay, then what’s the point? “Instead, strong regulation is intended to prevent the dominant broadband suppliers from abusing their market power.” In other words, “strong regulation” is magic, so just let the bureaucrats loose and they’ll find something to regulate.

Net neutrality is yet another example of “Baptists and bootleggers.” In this case, the Baptists are starry-eyed anti-capitalists like this professor; the bootleggers are technology companies that will benefit from rules designed to suppress competition and innovation; and, for the thousandth time, “reform” equals crony capitalism.