From Natural Monopoly to Public Utility: Technological Determinism and the Political Economy of Infrastructure in Progressive-Era America (October 2016)
Plaiss, Adam (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 57
Issue: 4
Pages: 806-830
Publication date: October 2016
Language: English
In present-day debates regarding telecommunication policy, one frequently hears the terms natural monopoly and public utility. This article investigates the origins of these ideas, finding that Richard T. Ely—a cele- brated American economist of the late nineteenth century—embedded in the term “natural monopoly” a narrative of technological determinism. By argu- ing that certain services had monopolizing tendencies hardwired into them, Ely argued for their regulation. Ely’s theory of natural monopoly formed the basis of Wisconsin’s 1907 public utilities law, which served as a model for many other states’ regulatory policies. The modern notion of public utility thus carries with it the technological determinism of Ely’s natural monopoly idea. By tracing the lineage of these two terms, this article recaptures the influence that activists and progressive politicians exercised over the forma- tion of large technological systems during the Second Industrial Revolution.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Xaq Frohlich;
(April 2017)
The informational turn in food politics: The US FDA’s nutrition label as information infrastructure
(/p/isis/citation/CBB818928934/)
Book
Slotten, Hugh Richard;
(2000)
Radio and Television Regulation: Broadcast Technology in the United States, 1920-1960
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000102166/)
Article
Lea Schick;
Brit Ross Winthereik;
(2016)
Making Energy Infrastructure: Tactical Oscillations and Cosmopolitics
(/p/isis/citation/CBB056900153/)
Article
Leonardi, Paul M.;
(2010)
From Road to Lab to Math: The Co-evolution of Technological, Regulatory, and Organizational Innovations for Automotive Crash Testing
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000953634/)
Thesis
Vinsel, Lee Jared;
(2011)
Federal Regulatory Management of the Automobile in the United States, 1966--1988
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001562835/)
Book
Ryan Ellis;
(2020)
Letters, Power Lines, and Other Dangerous Things: The Politics of Infrastructure Security
(/p/isis/citation/CBB767396346/)
Book Zachary Callen; Railroads and American political development: Infrastructure, federalism, and state building (/p/isis/citation/CBB971566202/)
Article
José Antonio Mateos Royo;
(2005)
Las patentes de invención en el Consejo de Aragón: control estatal y monopolio técnico en la Corona de Aragón durante el siglo XVII
(/p/isis/citation/CBB611968478/)
Article
Royo, Jose Antonio Mateos;
(2009)
State Policy, Institutional Framework and Technical Monopoly in Early Modern Spain: Invention Patents in the Crown of Aragon during the Seventeenth Century
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000931986/)
Article
Mukherji, Rahul;
(2009)
Interests, Wireless Technology, and Institutional Change: From Government Monopoly to Regulated Competition in Indian Telecommunications
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001031010/)
Article
Lagendijk, Vincent;
(2011)
“An Experience Forgotten Today”: Examining Two Rounds of European Electricity Liberalization
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001210209/)
Book
Arne Kaijser;
Per Högselius;
Erik van der Vleuten;
(2016)
Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature
(/p/isis/citation/CBB434310927/)
Book
Hugh R. Slotten;
(2022)
Beyond Sputnik and the Space Race: The Origins of Global Satellite Communications
(/p/isis/citation/CBB430492982/)
Book
Daniel Jordan Smith;
(2022)
Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria
(/p/isis/citation/CBB663829322/)
Thesis
Michael Reuben Fein;
(2003)
Public works: New York road building and the American state, 1880–1956
(/p/isis/citation/CBB537081914/)
Article
Aiken, Katherine G.;
(January 2019)
"The Environmental Consequences … Were Calamitous": Smelter Smoke Controversies in Progressive Era America, 1899–1918
(/p/isis/citation/CBB880376626/)
Thesis
Rebecca K. Cecala;
(2016)
Creating a Narrative of Life: Public Health Through the Eyes of Dr. Sara Josephine Baker
(/p/isis/citation/CBB769695115/)
Book
Martin T. Olliff;
David O. Whitten;
(2017)
Getting Out of the Mud: The Alabama Good Roads Movement and Highway Administration, 1898–1928
(/p/isis/citation/CBB297072008/)
Article
Frank Zelko;
(2018)
Optimizing Nature: Invoking the “Natural” in the Struggle Over Water Fluoridation
(/p/isis/citation/CBB219828824/)
Book
Smith, George David;
(2003)
From Monopoly to Competition: The Transformations of Alcoa, 1888--1986
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000740188/)
Be the first to comment!