[governance] Parminder's exchange with Bertrand

[Parminder]

Milton L Mueller wrote:
> To tie this back to Parminder, based on his latest post I can see where we part ways as well as agree. Parminder has decided that people acting as political collectivities are inherently superior to people acting as private market actors or businesses. 
No i dont think so. Both forms of action are legitimate and have their 
value. who told you that i think so??

> Probably he is operating under the delusion that political/democratic processes are inherently guided by a public interest logic 
They are supposed to be so guided. But they often are not, and therefore 
the need for deepening democracy processes and those of transparency, 
accountability, judicial scrutiny etc to make them work as closely as 
possible towards public interest. But we cannot solve this problem by 
junking political/ democratic processes, which is what many new age 
enthusiasts of MS-ism try to do (not you, i know)
> whereas private market action is driven by private interest which is inherently opposed to public interest. 
not so. It is not inherently opposed. Most often, within good frameworks 
of social action, like competitive and well regulated markets, good laws 
etc they promote, in fact constitute, larger public interest. So again 
you are putting words in my mouth, pertaining to things I dont profess.
> I disagree. Politicians and political parties have self-interest and can exploit.
yes, they very often do. See the description above on strengthening 
democratic systems to minimizing such abuses, without junking them.
>  Competitive market processes can promote the public interest. 
Competitive markets are indeed one of the primary social institutions to 
promote public interest.

> I think people are people, and they need both political processes and economic maximizing processes to survive, and both serve as appropriate checks on each other. 
Exactly so. Which is why I think that big business on global scale which 
has no concomitant political process as 'appropriate check' badly 
requires such checks, and this is one of the principal global political 
issues facing us today. (Dont know why you say below that this is not a 
real challenge.) Especially in the conditions with very fluid financial 
flows and increasingly more 'open' and often forced trade agreements, 
global business is easily able to play one national political regime 
against the other and escape all possibilities of 'appropriate checks', 
which makes this problem especially acute. Much more so for developing 
countries.
> To me, democracy without liberalism is just mob rule, just as capitalism without law, rights and democracy is lousy.
Again agree whole-heatedly. But global capitalism is increasingly 
without law and democracy to act as 'appropriate checks'. I know you 
feel it much less in the US where much of global business is 
incorporated and more sensitive to political checks. Such options are 
increasingly closed for less powerful nations. Thus we need appropriate 
democratic political arrangements at the global levels. And the 
confusing talks of unclear concepts like MS-ism, without full social 
analysis, serves the interests of big business by perpetuating the 
political vacuums at the global levels.
>  So while we agree strongly on extending democratic governance modes into the global arena we probably have radically different ideas about  how to do it. 
Ok, you tell me what is your idea on this. In which ways can global 
capitalism and its increasing force be met with (what you called as ) 
'appropriate checks'? You can also suggest specific solutions in the 
field of digital capitalism where IG is centrally implicated. I too am 
ready to share my ideas. The we can decide whether we agree to not, and 
to what extent.
> If you designate "neo-liberalism" as the main enemy I don't think you understand very well the real challenges of global governance. 
>   
Read my descriptions of increasing power of global capital and 
decreasing political controls over it, and how it affects developing 
countries' interest. Do you disagree with it. I presented that 
formulation mostly developing your own assertions in your email. And 
this is what I call as the challenge posed by neoliberalism to global 
governance. What do you think are the real challenges, and why do you 
think this is not a real challenge?

Parminder
> However, getting back to Ostrom and collective governance, even if you extend democracy beyond the nation-state you still have to decide what is the relevant community for governance decisions. The people who are always yammering about how good and noble it is to be group-oriented or collective oriented, and ridiculing those of us who talk about the individual, always seem to forget that communities have boundaries, and some of the world's worst crimes come not from individuals attacking or exploiting each other, but from groups - states, ethnicities, religions, etc. - defining other groups as excluded and "the other." No individual, no private, profit-maximizing corporation, could ever produce anything like WW 2 and its national and ethnic carnage.
>
> --MM
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