The strength of an economy, like that of a society, depends on social mobility. That means the poor can rise to wealth. It also means the wealthy can end up poor. (This old cartoon, from what folks like to call THE Ohio State University, pre-dates Wal-Mart by generations.)

A recent online conversation with Vijay Gill brought this home to me. The topic was actually our recent piece on The Myth of Scarcity. I liked it, posted it to Dave Farber's list, and Vijay responded quite thoughtfully, his point being that telecommunications is hard, some parts are scarce, and real technical knowledge is even scarcer. Maintaining total connectivity in the last mile without protecting the monopoly is harder than I make it sound.

This set me thinking in two directions at once.

First, much of the telecomm plant today is useless. If it was put in there for phone service it's useless, because voice is a low-bandwidth Internet service. The fast way to write-off that lost gear is through bankruptcy, another reason why the Bells must die.

Second, skill needs social mobility. When Dilbert is forced to work for the pointy-headed boss nothing good gets done. (Let's not forget Scott Adams came up with the strip while working at the old Pacific Bell.) Breaking up the monopolies is the best way to free the Dilberts.

Both these points are related. Oppression is directly related to inflexibility. Inflexibility is bad for people, and very bad in business. When organizations refuse to change they must be allowed to fail, just as a rich drunk should be allowed to fall into the gutter, both for his own sake and as an example to others.

The problems in American business and politics today are related. They come down to a lack of social mobility. Big companies are being allowed, by government, to hold monopolies and not fight for them. This is true in the media, in telecommunications, in software -- monopolies and shared monopolies are as destructive as the Trusts of Teddy Roosevelt's time.

What's needed in America today, more than anything else, is some old-fashioned trust-busting. We need more competition, more competition for wealth, for power, and for markets. Without it we're getting lazy, we're getting fat, and we're getting beat by people who do have to fight for their daily bread.

So break up the phone trusts. Then let's go about the work of breaking up the other trusts that hold competition back, and make sure they don't get another chance to re-form.