[governance] a reality check on economics

[McTim]

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 12:10 AM, Guru गुरु <Guru at itforchange.net> wrote:
> Milton
>
> The first problem of your 'reality check on economics' is that it is
> basically extreme neo-liberal economic thinking-  let markets decide, least
> regulation is the best. The deregulation (repeal of glass-steagall for
> instance) as well as inadequate regulation of the financial markets is
> accepted as an important cause of the crash of the financial markets - and
> unfortunately while some sections of society made billions, the costs are
> being borne by others, most of who had no connection with the causes. In the
> case of the Internet, which is a global phenomenon, we have no meaningful /
> democratic global regulation structures/processes yet.

Except the very  "meaningful / democratic global regulation
structures/processes"  that have helped make the Internet so
successful thus far.

In the last 8 days, I have actively participated in the African
Internet Summit, which is a Southern initiative that helps in
coordination/collaboration of Internet in Africa.
http://internetsummitafrica.org/


 Which given the huge
> concentration of power is a dangerous situation and one which is no longer
> tenable. American regulation should not take the place of global regulation
> (remember wikileaks and paypal etc etc which is one of the cases the joint
> civil society statement/ background note highlights). And here I am quite
> aware of your concerns about American domination as well... (one point of
> agreement!!).
>
> Your text book definition of monopoly is not useful or relevant in this
> debate - if you believe that the large transnational IT corporates do not
> have huge market power (and use it to their advantage) then your ideology is
> clouding your vision of reality. Can I seriously not use google search
> engine or facebook?

yes, you can seriously not use either.  I know folk who get along just
fine without either FB or Google.


 have you bought a computer where the manufacturer agreed
> to debundle windows operating system?

yes, recently.

 what is my negotiating power as a
> consumer vis-a-vis these companies.


use one of the hundreds of other search/email/social networks out there!

If you do use them, you can use them (FB/Google social networks) to
organise against their policies you disagree with.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-rules-everyone-can-vote-on-new-privacy-policy/13412

https://www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance/app_4949752878

I'm not defending either compnay particular policies, I'm just
pointing out facts.


 Most of us blindly click on the 'I
> accept' button to become users

Agreed, (but hopefully not most of "us" on this list!

how would you have Google/FB change this behaviour of end-users?


 what is the inference from this for the
> relative power of the corporate and consumer?


that consumers are not taking the opportunities given to them is the
first inference that comes to mind!


  And where we dont have
> monopolies in many cases we have oligopolies, this makes your belief of
> perfect competition in free markets a myth.
>
> Neoliberal economics (aka market fundamentalism) is discredited and a
> failure and is no answer to our challenges in IG - it is infact the
> problem...
>
> This does not mean (and sometimes you are eager to make this conclusion)
> that IT for Change is for the other extreme - Socialism or complete
> government control over the markets. I don't think anyone is making that
> argument. So your point about the failure of publicly funded search engines
> is superfluous.
>
> As economists agree, we are all mixed economies and we need to find the
> truth somewhere in between.  The Internet itself gives us some new powerful
> methods for framing the processes for such regulation / policy making

It also will allow end users to play a part in the governance of the
net directly instead of via gov't "proxies".

So let's let end users decide things instead of a CSTD WG!!  How "we"
do that (for some value of "we") is up to us.  There would be
non-trivial challenges involved in surveying end-users to help find
consensus on such issues, but they could be overcome.

How about a cross platform IG app, any takers?  Could be an
interesting project for IT for Change/EFF/cg.br, etc!


-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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