[governance] Letter to Rod Beckstrom

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 20 sept. 09 à 00:49, Milton L Mueller a écrit :

>> 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.

That's totally wrong. There is a confusion here among many different  
things, like private interests and private sector, as well as public  
interest and public monopolies, etc.

> 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.

Again, wrong. The telecom monopolies have been dismantled, yet in  
many countries public interest obligations have been maintained or  
introduced. Including obligations of private companies towards other  
private companies for the purpose of ensuring true competition (e.g.  
last loop unbundling). Another example is that, in France and other  
countries as well, actually at the EU level (where we do have  
electricity but not, to my knowledge, the soviets:)), there are also  
general service obligations (e.g. universal service), in the telecom  
and other sectors as well. The list is long, in various sectors.

Some might think that such obligations are still too burdensome for  
big private companies, others (and I include myself here) might think  
it's far from reaching true social justice. Again, this is a matter  
of ideological viewpoints, and there's nothing wrong with this. But  
don't tell us that policies favoring social justice imply the  
soviets. True, they imply that a market economy shouldn't be a jungle  
of uncontrolled economic liberalism.

> I wonder what choice Meryem Marzouki would have made, in 1975,

Too young at that time, sorry:))

> 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.

Frankly, this is stupid. See above on general service obligations.

> Social justice sounds nice. And I am not adamantly opposed to  
> social policies that ameliorate inequalities and foster equal  
> opportunity.

Ahhhhhh. What a relief:)

> Economic liberalism can co-exist with those, as long as they don't  
> get out of hand.

What do you mean? Of whose hand? Are you sure it's not economic  
liberalism that shouldn'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.

Come on, Milton. You can do better than be so comically caricatural.  
Otherwise, I'll start suspecting that, with this view of social  
democrats, you must be thinking that Obama is a dangerous communist  
willing to kill all people in the US with his social security plans.  
This reminds me a program I watched on Fox News around end July on  
this plan. According to them, Canadian people were dying simply by  
entering a Canadian hospital (they haven't mentioned Europe, since  
the social security systems in most member states are good enough to  
the extent that they already killed everyone in this part of the world).

> 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.

I let you read again and think twice... Not sure you've realized what  
you wrote here.

>> 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.

Sure. But my definition is different from yours. I think ICANN is an  
organization, led and driven by private companies and interests  
(including multi-nationals), still having to be somewhat accountable  
to the US gov, but willing to get rid of this. Well, this is quickly  
written and misses many details and subtleties, but that's to explain  
why, in my opinion, it doesn't fit any acceptable definition of a  
global institution. I think your definition is too inclusive here.

>> 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 fall into this again. I've thought we've gone beyond the ICANN  
vs. ITU debate?



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