What would a socialist internet look like? It’s a complicated question, because the internet is a complicated thing. But one part of the answer has just arrived in the form of a newly announced proposal from the Labour Party to provide free full-fiber broadband to all households and businesses by 2030. The plan is to start with the least-connected areas first, before rolling out the service to the rest of the country. The initiative would be led by a new public entity called British Broadband, which will both own the network and deliver the service.

It’s an ambitious proposal, and one that would go a long way toward creating a more just society. In his final book, the late sociologist Erik Olin Wright wrote that a just society would be one in which everyone “has broadly equal access to the material and social means necessary to live a flourishing life.” As Wright points out, the preconditions of human flourishing can vary by time and place. But there is no doubt that today, a fast and reliable internet connection is one of them.

Getting online is often a necessity for survival, much less flourishing: you need the internet to get a job, to find a place to live, to access government services. You also need it to participate fully in social, civic, and cultural life. Remote and rural communities are especially dependent on the internet for contact with the wider world, as are the elderly or those with disabilities that keep them indoors. Free high-quality broadband for all, then, is an egalitarian notion. It flows from the recognition that the internet is an indispensable infrastructure of modern life, and one that must be made universally available if everyone is expected to enjoy some minimum degree of dignity and self-determination.