Abundanomics: The politics of plentitude

[Commentary] As the luckiest chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in history, who came into office in the salad days of the Internet and wireless, I faced policy choices that fell along the line of good, better and best. The goal in every area of information, communications and technology was simple: How to get everything to be faster, better, cheaper.

When abundance is the goal, mistakes can be more easily forgiven or at least forgotten (I bungled one auction), and successes can exceed dreams (our sector did more than any other to create the federal budget surplus, increases for every quintile on the income ladder, and added more than 2 million net new jobs). Technology, finance and global networks enable us to re-create the politics of abundance with bigger scale and scope than was possible in the '90s. It is technically and economically feasible, for example, to distribute robust public goods to everyone on the Internet — about 3 billion people and almost everyone in the United States — at a cost that approximates zero. The key now, as it was then, is twofold. First, assure low-cost access to key inputs that enable long-term investments in transformative infrastructure. Second, remove barriers to replacing old methods with the new. If that is done, the low marginal costs will combine with human creativity to produce the kind of abundance that replaces a short, cross country phone call priced at dollars with a video conference uniting persons on five continents, all for free.