[governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom

[Michael Gurstein]

Milton,

"Social justice" requires no such thing except in the somewhat fevered
fantasies of neo-Cold Warriors and their ilk.  

Social justice is a set of norms--equality, equality before the law,
meleorative intervention to resolve social distress, universal access to the
variety of social and public goods and so on... In principle at least these
can be provided by any form of governance (or non-governance under some
schemas). 

Admittedly, certain types of governance arrangements involving the use of
the instrumentality of the State would appear to be a particularly useful
modality of implementation but the same could be said for the relationship
between a libertarian's free market and the ethical (and governance
structures) of the jungle.

MBG
-----Original Message-----
From: Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu] 
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 12:50 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Meryem Marzouki
Subject: RE: [governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom


> 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. 
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance