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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Thursday 14 February 2013 01:26 PM,
Roland Perry wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:edBuVJ01iJHRFAkD@internetpolicyagency.com"
type="cite"><snip)<br>
And that sounds like it includes my recent activity, which has
been working with interest-based charities, volunteers etc who
have a focus on one particular aspect of social justice, human
rights and the rule of law: Prevention of violence against women -
in particular those who are tracked and harassed via their
Internet footprint (commonly on social networking sites). <br>
<br>
However, I'm also aware that in order to achieve the goal of
protecting women, some people might characterise the techniques
involved as forms of selective censorship and attempts to strip
away anonymity (in both cases with respect to their attackers). <br>
<br>
So not every part of Civil Society necessarily has the same view
on core issues such as these. <br>
</blockquote>
<br>
No, congruity of views in not the test. Working for public interest
is. Although there can be different and contested notions of public
interest - and that space of contestation, negotiation and possible
resolution/ harmonisation is called politics, (No, Suresh, politics
is not what you think it is. It is a good word, although it, like
almost anything else - markets for instance, can involve bad/
manipulative practises as well as outcomes.)<br>
<br>
There is ages old distinction between public interest and private
interest, including organised private interests, and this
distinction holds now as ever. Any non-governmental body involved in
public interest issues/ advocacy is a civil society organisation. In
fact I will accept a definition broader than the one used by Council
of Europe and quoted by Norbert. I will include organisation that
dont believe in the concept of 'social justice', may in fact decry
this concept as dangerous to people's liberties, (there are so many
of them, esp in the US - BTW, Milton has said on this list that
there is no thing like social justice) as long as such organisations
truly believe that they are working in the larger public interest,
and not narrow private interests of defined parties. (No, working,
say, on disability rights cannot be called as working for private
interests of defined parties. It is public interest work, and
'disabled people' are here to be considered as a distinct 'public
group' and not a private group. Dont have space or time to argue the
basis of this distinction any further here.)<br>
<br>
These distinctions are hallowed norms of democratic public life for
decades now, if not centuries.... The extent of anti-democratic
thought that has permeated into many people's conception of what is
presented as a new political model of multistakeholderism is the
reason that many progressive groups have begun to look at (such
conceptions of) multistakeholderism itself with suspicion. It is
this kind of normative loose-ness - that works for the interests of
the more powerful rather than the less powerful, for whom democracy
is supposed to work) - that is multistakeholderism's biggest enemy.
<br>
<br>
<br>
The normative basis and boundaries of and within
multistakeholderism, and its relationship with democracy, have to
saved, as well as expounded very clearly, for it to be seriously
considered as a form / system of participatory democracy. (If that
is what MSism really is in the minds of its proponents.)<br>
<br>
In the end, when such discussions as this one takes place, I can
hardly ever stop myself from re(quoting) the father of free market
thinking, Adam Smith, who said...<br>
<br>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><font size="4">"People of the same
trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against
the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But
though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from
sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to
facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them
necessary. "</font><br>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><font size="4">"To widen the
market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest
of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of
commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be
listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be
adopted till after having been long and carefully examined,
not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most
suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose
interest is never exactly the same with that of the public,
who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress
the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions,
both deceived and oppressed it."</font></p>
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What a profanity it is to utter something like this in any
multistakeholder environment... nay, it now seems it may be
inadmissible even within a IG related CS group.... Adam Smith I
understand may have been unceremoniously evicted from such spaces.
Poor guy - and he thought he was trying to make (or mark) market
thinking and economic-logic as a/ the premier force in our social
systems.<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
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