[governance] SOPA or no SOPA

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 13.12.11 08:11, parminder wrote:
>
>>    For example, from a policy perspective, the way that the ASO handles
>>    global policies requires alignment of communities in all five regional
>>    registries to establish new global policy.  This is an intentionally
>>    high bar; one that requires solid consensus in order to proceed.
>>    Parties have multiple fora in which to make their case for/against
>>    a policy, and actual listening and accommodation of needs of less
>>    popular views is inevitably required if one hopes to make new global
>>    address policy.
>>    
>
> I greatly appreciate the ideal of high level of consensus that is 
> upheld in a lot of technical policy making processes, and it may/does 
> work to prevent highjacking of policy making processes by a few, more 
> powerful. However, larger political issues, beyond the technical, may 
> not be best served by similar processes. By definition, 'technical' is 
> that in which case there is always a best (or close to best) solution 
> that is beneficial more or less to all, except maybe a minuscule 
> minority. However, the 'political', the subject of public polices, 
> involves much clearer trade-offs and division-of-benefits/losses. 
> Consensus based governance processes, like multistakeholderism (as a 
> system of governance), in such cases, simply perpetuate the status 
> quo, which is often very unjust.

The 'technical' consensus is based on common sense and in virtually all 
cases wins, compared to the political consensus. The political consensus 
is based on promises, that politicians ah too easy make and that are 
never fulfilled in reality. But even if fulfilled, they could only serve 
and satisfy a minority. There is no evidence of the contrary.

> The most powerful interests are able to veto any progressive change. 
> For instance, if we were looking at whether the richest should be 
> taxed more, a hot political issue in the US, what are the chances that 
> such a move can be carried by consensus?

This is simple. If you go for a consensus, then you need to define whose 
consensus. If you go the "democratic" way, and require the consensus of 
everyone, as in voting, then the rich people generally "lose" because 
those who do not consider themselves rich and will believe they will not 
be taxed are more. If you have a ratio of say 1:100 to rich:other 
people, this is also politically 'reasonable', because for every rich 
person vote, you gain 100 'other' votes. Of course, the rich perople 
typically pay the politicians to do what suits them, including for the 
election campaigns so for the politicians it is really a matter of 
calculating where the greater benefit will be. Not the public interest! 
Not any forward looking planning and even vision.

> And if large corporates sat at the policy table, will they  let it pass? 

Surprisingly, they may. Large corporations have been distorted to the 
point, to care more about things like market share, shareholder profits 
etc. They do not care much about (domestic) politics etc. So 
corporations may surprisingly support more taxes for the rich, if this 
brings them more profit (like, the masses having more money to spend on 
their products).

> I am just trying to make a point that what works in CIR management 
> does not necessarily work for larger political and public policy 
> issues involved in global Internet governance. The latter require a 
> different response.

The key difference here is that Internet is global.

> The precise point of my original 'sopa or no sopa' posting was to show 
> how this is not the case, and US state actors are able to impose their 
> will over the whole world. This is a 'real situation' that requires a 
> 'real response'. In the circumstances, the least that global civil 
> society can do is to sympathise with developing countries when they 
> speak up against such unfairness and injustice, and call for urgent 
> corrective actions.
>

We have to understand two things here:

1. The US has always been 'in charge' of the Internet.

2. This will continue to be so, while everybody prefers to utilize the 
services of US based Internet corporations instead of the services of 
'local' parties. Funny enough, most such cases are "because we do not 
want those local guys becoming important, so we will instead collaborate 
with someone abroad, why not that US corporation that offers us so many 
promises".

Internet let's everyone be their own masters. It also lets any 
individual or a group of individuals have whatever they want 
relationship with the rest of the world or any particular party. It 
gives people ultimate freedom in communication. Most don't understand 
this yet, but more and more already do.

This is all freaking the Government types. And we see all sort of SOPA 
things.

Daniel
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