Academic

ADAM THIERER: The Sad State of Cyber-Politics. I don?t know if it would make him smile or grimac?

By Glenn Reynolds

ADAM THIERER: The Sad State of Cyber-Politics.

I don’t know if it would make him smile or grimace, but someone should give T. J. Rodgers a prize for his predictive powers. Back in 2000, Rodgers, the president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, penned a prescient manifesto for the Cato Institute with a provocative title: “Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations with Washington, D.C.”

“The political scene in Washington is antithetical to the core values that drive our success in the international marketplace and risks converting entrepreneurs into statist businessmen,” he warned. “The collectivist notion that drives policymaking in Washington is the irrevocable enemy of high-technology capitalism and the wealth creation process.”

Alas, no one listened. Indeed, Rodgers’s dystopian vision of a highly politicized digital future has taken just a decade to become reality. The high-tech policy scene within the Beltway has become a cesspool of backstabbing politics, hypocritical policy positions, shameful PR tactics, and bloated lobbying budgets.

Read the whole thing. But I’m not sure this could have been prevented. Every successful system accumulates parasites.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on November 22, 2010 (boomark / email).