[governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom

[Milton L Mueller]

> Unbundle, Milton, unbundle.. You're talking like a (de facto)
> software monopoly:)

Oh no, you are almost 180 degrees pointed away from the truth. "Social justice" requires monopoly and bundling, as do all forms of hierarchically redistributed wealth. E.g., the old telephone monopolies were considered to be "just" forms of bundling service with all kinds of public obligations, and it was only that terrible economic liberalism that broke them up and unbundled them and gave us the Internet. I wonder what choice Meryem Marzouki would have made, in 1975, had she been confronted with the choice of an unbundled, competitive, economically liberal information services industry organized around a decentralized, globalized Internet and the good old public service monopoly circa 1975. I suspect she would have invoked social justice and told us to never let the Internet happen.

Social justice sounds nice. And I am not adamantly opposed to social policies that ameliorate inequalities and foster equal opportunity. Economic liberalism can co-exist with those, as long as they don't get out of hand. But I always have a hard time understanding why social democrats believe that humans as economic actors are destructive, horrible and incapable and the very same humans as political actors become selfless, constructive, justice-pursuing demigods. That is why I say you can't have one without the other. If people are too stupid or pathetic to have economic freedom then they can't have political freedom either. 

> The whole point with ICANN in this discussion is that it is NOT a
> "global institution". 

Not sure what you mean here. If its effects are global and it is institutionalized it is, in my definition, a global institution. And ICANN more or less meets both criteria. I am sure you understand that no global polity will spring perfectly into being. 

> rules. Because if you enter it, you back it, whatever the genuineness
> of your intentions and efforts.

Yes, one does have to make choices. If it's a choice between the DNS and IP addresses being taken over by states/IGOs or some modification and evolution of the ICANN/RIR regime I've made my choice. 
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