Physical Scarcity, Rent Seeking, and the First Amendment

Abstract

The driving force in federal licensing has been the combined political interests of legislatois desirous of obtaining valuable prerogatives over the assignment of frequencies; incumbent broadcasters, ever vigilant in restricting new entry into broadcasting; and public interest lobbyists, whose self-interests lay in politicizing the assignment process d, :pite the expropriation which their constituents thereby suffered. Nance, a classic rent-seeking competition forged the licensing regime in broadcasting in the 192Cs and has steadfastly maintained it since, due to the vector payoffs associated with such a schema. The support for this thesis is evidence suggesting that the historical rendition of the pre-regulation broadcasting market offered in both the NBC and the Red Lion cases was largely fanciful, and that a more accurate history of the early broadcasting period reveals that an orderly market was reshaped by political interests to yield rents, not to solve interference. This history shows that physicascarcity and its ancillary justifications for content regulation are ad hoc rationalizations of policies adopted for specified political purposes. Most important for Constitutional considerations is that the means chosen to implement such dealings provoke precisely the same concerns that make government licensing of print unlawful; i.e., politicization of the press produces results antagonistic to the most fundamental First Amendment values. ((1L) *********************************************h*****W******************* Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. * * ***********************1c************************T***************Ic****** U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCA nON Office of Eaucafionpi ResewCh ar,d frhofo.ereefFouCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC' ATh.s doc.theht has been en' ocifCea as we've(' f fon. the Der SOh Of orga,fizalin of voahng t : M.nof Changes have been made to .,otovp ,eplocluct,or, Quaid. Po.nts Of 013,fiooS stated., th.s dor., 'rent 00 nOt hPcessator tewesehl Ott' 'a' OF RI pos.hon Of C.OfiCY Physical Scarcity, Rent Seeking, and the First Amendment Thomas W. Hazlett University of California, Davis