[governance] Parminder's exchange with Bertrand

[michael gurstein]

Milton, why not just favourably quote Margaret Thatcher's famous tag "there
is no such thing as Society" and leave the rest of the rhetorical flourishes
aside.

MBG

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:57 AM
To: 'Jeanette Hofmann'; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Cc: Parminder; Bertrand de La Chapelle
Subject: RE: [governance] Parminder's exchange with Bertrand



> -----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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