Richard Bennett, the same one who criticized my column in Governing arguing for municipal fiber optic networks, had an op-ed in today’s New York Times that used some of the same arguments to criticize those who are critical of this country’s internet service. I am going to try to find the time to do a point by point rebuttal of Bennett, who excels at what appears to me at first glance rhetorical slight of hand, but for now I’d like simply to ask what is Bennett arguing for, or rather, against? To answer my own question, he appears to be implicitly arguing against greater oversight or control of the big telecommunications companies, from  Verizon to Time Warner to Comcast, that are usually brought up when people talk about slow and expensive internet speeds. A lot to me would be clearer if I knew who funds the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, where Bennett is a fellow. I suspect it gets a lot of money from these companies I mentioned, or parties associated with them. I don’t know though, because I’ve been unable to find out. If anyone does know, drop me an email.

This was a nice present that came out on my wedding anniversary. Ms. Cleveland gets it just right in this review of my latest book in The Huffington Post.

I have encountered the primal myth of money and markets many times when talking about my most recent book, The Surprising Design of Market Economies. I tell people that the state, that is government, creates markets. Inevitably someone in the audience comes back with, “Yeah, but markets are natural. Thousands of years ago, before formal governments, two farmers were trading or swapping goats for bricks, or cheese for tools, and so on.” It’s an important question for a number of reasons, but one of them is that  this idea that markets or at least market trading behavior is a basic aspect of human nature is the foundation myth of of both classical economics, and of Libertarianism. But even average, seemingly non-political and non-economics oriented people seem to hold some version of this belief.

David Graeber, in his new book Debt: The First 5000 Years, does a very good job as exposing this foundational myth for the fantasy that it is. Graeber, an anthropologist by training, shows that no primitive tribe or early people have ever acted this way, at least that has been found. He shows that those friendly to classical economists, who tend to talk about markets as natural, have spent effort trying to find such people with their natural markets, and have failed.

I talk a lot in my book about how governments create markets. Indeed, that is its central thesis. But I only address the fallacy of the of primal myth of markets in passing.  I didn’t have the knowledge and expertize that Graeber has accumulated from his years of research, to show exactly how classical economists are wrong in this regard. Graeber even takes on the master himself, Adam Smith, and convincingly so.

Graeber exposes the inaccuracy of the primal myth of markets as part of his larger thesis in showing what are the origins of markets, in an economic sense. Graeber says not only that markets are a creation of the state, but that markets begin with debt, which in turn was usually created by the state. It’s an interesting theory, and he does a good job supporting it.

I’m just beginning the book, so I won’t pass any final judgments here, but so far I’m impressed by how readable Graeber is, and how succinctly and simply Graeber writes about what are often complex subjects, while using well sourced examples to illustrate his thesis. My hat, so far, is off to Graeber.

I had my first experience today on the new New York bike share plan, https://citibikenyc.com/, and it was mostly positive.

I walked over to the check out post at 11th and 2nd Avenue, near my office at Union Square, here in NYC. It took me awhile to figure out how to check out the bike with my little key. The instructions beside the slot were completely wrong. They referred to punching in 5 numbers on the key pad. I had no five numbers, and there was no keypad. What’s up with that? All I had to do was put my blue fob into the slot. Then the light flashed green and I could lift it out. But all the talk about five numbers and a keypad confused me. And the bike would not come out. Luckily, someone else was checking in a bike, and she showed me how you had to lift the bike from the back to get it out. That worked. But I bet a lot of people will have trouble with that.

Then I was off, going down the bike lane on 2nd Avenue. My first big complaint was one I suspected. The bike didn’t fit me. I had put the seat all the way up, but still my knees were almost level at the top of the pedal cycle. That’s too bad for me. I am hardly a usual size. I’m six foot seven, and I have extra long legs, even for someone my height. Maybe I could buy a booster seat, or make one. Seriously.

But leaving that aside, the little bike road well. I made it to Delancey street, and turned left, aiming for the Williamsburg bridge. My plan was to go across, and then check the bike in somewhere around hip-central in Williamsburg. I figured if the bike wasn’t handling, or I got tired, I could turn around. I also was keeping an eye on the time. As a annual member, I had 45 minutes. Given the moderate pace I was traveling, that might be tight. I hit the bridge, and started pedaling. It was slow going, and tiring, on a bike that didn’t fit me. But eventually I hit the middle of the bridge, over the East River, and then coasted down. I then made my way pretty easily to a docking station at Metropolitan and Bedford. I docked my bike easily, in one of two open docks available. This was a weird thing. Of the scores of docking slots, only two or so were free. Virtually no one had checked out a bike in Williamsburg. That surprised me. I  thought all these hipsters would rush to it. Maybe they are all sleeping in, or the blue bikes aren’t artisanal enough for them. Whatever. I looked at my watch. 33 minutes had passed. I had made it. But if I had been on a day pass, I would not have, and would have been charged extra. Maybe the city should make it 45 minutes for everyone, or even an hour. After docking the bike, I walked down Bedford, and surveyed the scene.

My first time bike share experience was mostly good, as I said. My biggest and most pleasant surprise revolved around what it was like to use a bike, but not to be tethered to it. Usually when I take out the bike I own, it’s like a date I can’t get rid of.  With Citibikes, when I got tired of my date, I could leave her behind. Or to switch metaphors, the bicycle was a movable feast. I could ride over to Williamsburg, dock the bike, and then forget about it. If I wanted to return to Manhattan, I could check out a different bike, at the same docking station or a different one. This was very nice. I could see mobile, independent New Yorkers get very used to this. I bet creative types will invent all sorts of way to use these share bikes, in ways not imagined.

Some other thoughts. I wore no helmet, not having one with me. My decision to go and try out the new Citibikes was a spontaneous one. Not wearing a helmet was on my mind, no pun intended, due to certain occurrences lately. How could we make it easier to wear a helmet? Maybe someone could invent a collapsible, foldable bicycle helmet! Maybe it already exists! Something made of little panels. I could then stuff it in my briefcase, and get it out when needed. Yes! I just found this on the internet. Seems to be a work in progress: http://mashable.com/2013/01/30/folding-bike-helmet/

Despite views on bike helmets too involved to summarize here, I’m increasingly thinking that New York is just too dangerous to bicycle in without a helmet. If New York were Amsterdam or Copenhagen, I’d have a different opinion and heartily endorse helmetless cycling. But we ain’t Amsterdam, by a long shot. But how do you easily get helmets to people who need them? It’s a challenge. And how do you change the behavior of drivers, who are the ones who necessitate wearing helmets? It’s also, a challenge.

Eric Sanderson, author of the new book Terra Nova as well as Mannahatta, has a nice blog post about the many meanings of the word “Resilience.” Eric had these deep thoughts while on a panel I organized at the Eastern Economic Association convention a week ago. It was a great panel, and my thanks to Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation and to Jason Barr of Rutgers, who also participated. You can see Eric’s blog post on Resilience here.

It shows you how media saturated New York City is that I end up featured in this front-page article in the Wall Street Journal about old people who are carded when they buy alcohol. Okay not “old,” but clearly over 21. I’m happy because the author mentioned my new book, The Surprising Design of Market Economies. The mention came about because I was buying a beer while at a game of the Brooklyn Nets at the new stadium, and the reporter Barry Newman asked to interview me. Being a former reporter myself, I was happy to oblige and tried to be pithy.

Richard Bennett, a Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, has written a lengthy response to my column advocating public fiber optic networks. As I say in my response to his response, he addresses an argument I did not make, and fails to address arguments I did. You can see his and my responses here. The larger question I have is who is this ITIF? Its website gives no information on its funding, that I could find.

What the hell are the Commons and do we still have them? Yes, and overall, we have a lot more of them, despite the recent wave of privatizations over the last few decades. I’m talking though the long view. Read about it here in this nifty online magazine On The Commons.

Here’s a new Governing column of mine I think particularly important. It concerns who will control what is becoming the crucial infrastructure of the present and future, the fiber optic lines.

As I say in the column, there are parallels to the long and extensive battles that took place 50 to 100 years ago in and around electricity service. I wouldn’t be surprised if most Americans are ignorant of this. I certainly was. Turn onto it the actions that await, to our mutual benefit.

My old teacher Anthony Lewis died this week, and a melancholy descended on me, along with a sense of gratitude for my luck in experiencing his intelligence and insight directly.

I first experienced him personally in Columbia Journalism School in 1988. He taught the required 1^st Amendment law course with Vincent Blasi, a noted attorney on the subject. Every Friday, I think it was, we would trudge over to the Law school and get to sit in one of the amphitheater shaped classrooms while Lewis and Blasi taught us through the Socratic method. Based on assigned readings of cases, the two would take us through a series of questions that would lead us to the heart of the case’s importance and central issues. It was my first experience with the Socratic method, and I loved it. I was an avid participant, despite not having always read the cases thoroughly. At the end of the year, I mailed Lewis a letter expressing my appreciation.

After that, I of course continued to read his columns in the Times. We may have had some direct contact, but the first time I remember was 12 years later, in 1999-2000, when I was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Part of the Loeb experience is a weekly dinner at the fellowship’s small house, to which the fellows are encouraged to invite prominent people. At my encouragement, we invited Anthony Lewis to dinner one week. He was nice enough to accept. I admit I don’t recall too many of his remarks that evening, and all in all he may have been a bit off of his game, being faced with mostly designers and urban planners, and not journalists or lawyers. But I do remember my pleasure in seeing him, and his ever graciousness, which I had noted before. He had commented on the wine, noting its niceness. At the suggestion of Marcia, the one lawyer in the bunch of fellows that year, we gave him one of the remaining bottles to take home, and sent him on his way, back to his home not far away in our own Cambridge, where no doubt his Massachusetts Supreme Court justice wife Mary Marshall awaited him.