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Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
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<div>On 03/03/2010, at 12:42 PM, Parminder wrote:</div>
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<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">I agree with Milton's doubts
whether the MS framework contributes
anything new (in a positive sense) for organising our political
systems. What does the term stakeholder groups bring in beyond what we
already know as 'interest groups', a basic and a widely used concept
of representative democracy. Unless those arguing for MS-ism as the
basic new governance form clearly articulate a response to this
question, it is difficult to go any further in this discussion. <br>
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<div>It can be justified on the basis that each of the stakeholder
groups draws its legitimacy from a different source. For governments,
it is their democratic representation of their citizens; for the
private sector, it is that free markets offer superior efficiency in
the distribution of goods and services; and civil society promotes
substantive values for their own sake, including transnational values
for which governments can claim no democratic mandate.</div>
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Jeremy<br>
<br>
Only (real) people's interests are sources of political legitimacy, not
ideas and beliefs like 'real markets offer superior efficiency in the
distribution of goods and services'. Ideas and beliefs do however get
enshrined in constitutions etc but that is a different level of
political authority. For this reason, only entities like governments,
who are elected, and civil society bodies that represent interests of
different groups of (real) people, have political legitimacy. <br>
<br>
Now, even if for the sake of argument if we agree that abstract ideas
like 'markets offer superior efficiency in the distribution of goods
and services' should have people representing them at policy tables,
two problems come up.<br>
<br>
(1) There are counter different ideas, even in the economic field while
many many more outside. One can never be sure which one should be
represented, and by whom and how much. There could be the idea that
centrally planned systems offer best resource allocation, or mixed
systems do that best (you would know that upto 50 percent of GDP of
developed countries is spent by governments, in creation of public
goods as well as in redistribution). Should all of them be given equal
(?) space on the policy table. If so, how? Also, arent these different
ideas/ ideologies already represented in different kinds of
governments, political parties (from right to left), and also civil
society groups?<br>
<br>
<br>
(2) Perhaps even more importantly, it is a wrong belief that reps of
big business represent interests of 'free markets'. Faster we disabuse
ourselves of this notion the better. They represent shareholder value -
simple and clear, and would be as happy to get it through non-free
monopolistic markets, as most big business often do, more so in digital
arena, as from free markets.<br>
<br>
Therefore the notion that big business should be present, in the huge
mass and force that they are present in MS bodies, because they
represents the ideal of 'free markets' is patently untenable. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:6DA2DCE5-CF10-4775-8C41-F72D80FE4A3E@ciroap.org"
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<div><br>
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<div>But at the end of the day I agree with Avri that largely it is
largely a pragmatic thing, because the three (arguably more)
stakeholder groups were formally recognised at WSIS, so why not let's
run with that while it helps us, without assuming it is either a
panacea or a fundamentally new paradigm of governance.</div>
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</blockquote>
To that pragmatism I too agree and subscribe. But that should not
preclude engaged social analysis of what MS systems in their actual
operation often do. Also, I am quite sure that MS-ism has often been
presented on this list with the presumptuousness of it being 'a
fundamentally new paradigm of governance'.<br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:6DA2DCE5-CF10-4775-8C41-F72D80FE4A3E@ciroap.org"
type="cite">
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