The New Politics

Several years ago I was driving cross-country from Washington to Berkeley. My D.C. license plates inevitably sparked interesting political discussions along the way, especially in the Rocky Mountains, where I encountered many people with sympathy for the militias so often derided on the coasts. One conversation in particular made a strong impression.

I chatted with a nice fellow who was fishing with his son. He was discussing his firsthand experience with the federal government's abuse of power. When I told him I was on my way to Berkeley, he said, with some regret in his voice, "Those guys in the '60s had it right. I didn't realize it at the time but the antiwar radicals were patriots. They understood that the government couldn't be trusted and tried to do something about it."

Here was a guy most people would have placed on the far-right fringe of American politics expressing his admiration for those who defined the far left. Isn't that shocking? Well, yes, at first. But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

The so-called ideological spectrum bears a strong resemblance to a circle. Although guided by very different logic, people on the far left and far right of politics have reached similar conclusions regarding the danger of governmental abuse of power and the importance of individual rights.

The Internet often reminds us of the plasticity of political ideology. Few, if any, of the hot online issues that currently receive attention in political and policy communities have a readily identifiable ideological divide. In other words, there is no right or left in cyberspace.

I am not arguing, as some have suggested, that the Internet is post-political. On the contrary, as the Net grows, political disputes regarding technology's future will only increase. What is clear, however, is that in all such policy disputes there will be no "liberal" or "conservative" position, and partisan labels will provide little guidance. Consider a few of the most prominent issues of the moment:

Internet Taxation: Having failed to reach an agreed-upon two-thirds majority recommendation, the 18-member Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce voted 10 to eight to a five-year extension of the moratorium on new Internet taxes. The deep divisions that kept the committee from reaching consensus didn't follow ideological or party lines. Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Republican, has led the opposition to Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, also a Republican, who has led the drive to ban taxes on e-commerce.

It's possible to view this issue in ideological terms. The exemption of Internet sales from taxation is an extremely regressive tax policy. Poor people spend less money online. By exempting online purchases, the tax burden is disproportionately placed on the people who can least afford it, instead of on relatively wealthy Internet users. But that argument is rarely, if ever, invoked. Rather, attention is rationally placed on the unfairness of putting brick-and-mortar retailers at a comparative disadvantage.

Striking even closer to the concerns of public officials of all stripes, the exemption of Internet sales from taxation is a potential threat to states and localities that rely on sales taxes to finance their programs. That is a concern naturally uniting the most partisan of Democrats and Republicans.

Privacy: What is striking at the moment when it comes to privacy is that the big, bad government wolf is not a Joseph McCarthy-like reactionary or even a religious prude in the image of Pat Robertson, but more like Bill Clinton. That's right, the same president reviled by the political right as a dope-smoking, draft-dodging liberal is also feared as an information-age Big Brother. As if this does not seem weird enough, Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, conservative icon and House impeachment manager, is teaming up with the ACLU to protest Echelon (ELON) , the network of spy agencies that is monitoring all sorts of electronic global communications. Has the world gone mad?

Not really. The Internet has introduced new problems ranging from malicious hacking and sales of prescription drugs to cyberstalking. Most people want these problems addressed. Disagreement comes when the solutions more than the problems themselves frighten people. So, for example, the FBI's proposed rules, which would require computer manufacturers to make PCs eavesdropping-friendly is a step too far for many -- even if it means that some criminals may escape punishment. Others, however, are willing to let the government onto their computers to protect their children from pedophiles lurking in chat rooms. Which group of people are the liberals and which are the conservatives?

OK, let's move past the straightforward part. Many privacy advocates argue that the real danger is not from the government, but from profit-seeking corporations, greedily searching for consumer data. This is the DoubleClick (DCLK) threat. Now who can stop these companies from violating our rights? Industry self-regulation? Unlikely. Why, it's the government, of course.

Uncle Sam is being called on to restrict private firms in their collection of personal information. To the libertarian (for those who think my whole argument comes down to over-reliance on the liberal-conservative divide), this is unacceptable. The government should not be restricting the behavior of private firms. But if the government does not act, individual liberty would be, in a real sense, even more threatened, albeit by private companies.

Intellectual Property: It would surprise no one if tomorrow an Internet company patented the idea of going to work in the morning. Stories of silly patents mask a potentially debilitating problem. What is the proper extent of property rights in an information-based economy? The e-commerce patent follies raise some worries of overly aggressive protection of intellectual property rights stalling economic activity.

The coming donnybrook in the intellectual property field will concern biotechnology. Already private companies have patented sequences of the human genome. This poses a danger not only for the future of genetics-based industries but also for medical researchers. Do such patents preclude scientific investigation? If there is no commercial angle, will large pharmaceutical companies or other biotech firms invest the hundreds of millions required? Should the government bankroll research that will benefit a limited number of investors who planted their flag in this unmarked terrain? Which is of greater weight, the property rights of those who secured patents, or the health of a market for genetic innovation that could be prematurely stifled by speculation?

These are difficult questions for which ideology is no guide.

The ambiguity helps explain why neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have been able to establish themselves as the party of high tech (notwithstanding the efforts of both to do just that). Not only do tech concerns cut across party and ideological lines, but tech interests inevitably clash with core elements of each party's constituency. For example, high-tech companies' insistence on the need to raise immigration quotas offend both right-wing Republicans and the Democrats' labor base.

It is conceivable that as Internet and other technology issues take on broader societal significance, a new or existing political party will abandon positions based on old cleavages to emerge as the Party of Technology. For the immediate future, the ideologies that animate political parties will not allow any such co-optation. Both parties will continue to court Internet support, and tech leaders will continue to play both sides of the fence.

In the long run, however, the persistence of issues that do not conform to the right-left schism could finally banish this flawed paradigm to memory.