[governance] Parminder's exchange with Bertrand

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeanette Hofmann [mailto:jeanette at wzb.eu] 
> 
> I completely disagree with a solely individual notion of global 
> governance. 

This is just a rhetorical trap that you have fallen into, and has utterly no bearing on my argument. Any collectivity is in the end composed of individual human beings. This does not mean that all governance must take place bilaterally through contract; it does not mean that no individuals need take into account group interests and solidarities. A collective entity can and will create and impose rules or regulations. The issue is what institutional framework permits the individuals who actually live and breathe to create collective governance arrangements and what status do they accord people as participants within and shapers of them. In creating governance arrangements, these groups must respect and express the interests and preferences of the people within them. Any other approach constitutes a form of authoritarianism or mysticism, e.g., "some people are less important than others and don't deserve to be represented or heard;" "collective consciousness;" "racial spirit" or other such nonsense). 

> Autonomy and self-determination do not rest and 
> refer to, at least not necessarily, on individual freedom only.
> What we are all arguing about here concerns democratic 
> "rules for a life in common", as 

Tell me what it means to speak of "life in common" without reference to the individuals who live and who form groups. I am not interested in reified notions of group consciousness or races or other such ghosts.

And tell me how dividing up the world into "governments" (an institutionalized collectivity with guns) "business" (corporate entities based on trade/markets) and "civil society" (which overlaps with both previous categories and has no homogeneity of interest and no guns and no money other than what the first two give it) makes any sense. 

--MM

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