[governance] reality check on economics

[parminder]

On Sunday 20 May 2012 06:54 PM, Avri Doria wrote:
> On 19 May 2012, at 23:39, Guru गुरु wrote:
>
>    
>> I think you have begun a useful thread of thought - the need for global regulation of business.
>>      
> I did not go that far.
>
> I was looking for what could be done at a global level to help avoid local monopolies in information services.
>    

the monopolies are not local, they are global. If they were local, yes 
local competition law is all that is needed. But they are not.

> I also spoke of global work to help produce local regulatory reform.

As above, local regulatory reform are ineffective, esp if you are not 
the US. The global monopolies are too strong, and local jurisdictions 
weak in front of them. When Taipie asked Google to operate Android 
Market as per local consumer law, Google simply withdrew Android Market 
from Taipie. Increasingly, most jurisdictions cannot sustain withdrawal 
of monopoly services which are becoming such a big part of daily social 
existence of people. However, if such issues are taken up at some 
appropriate global level, governments can pull together their collective 
strength and can come up with guidelines and principles that address 
such eventualities.....

>
> I do not not advocate global regulation of business.
>    

Two issues here . (1) The 'problem' is global, the problem makers being 
global players with swift feet to move in and out of any jurisdiction.

(2) People like you, and I say it because you have made this assertion 
often, wish to be global citizens.

In the circumstances, dislike of global rules and regulation (that comes 
out of an emerging 'global social compact') is first of all quite 
inexplicable, and, secondly, just another way of saying, I will let the 
problem be. Because it cant be solved any other wise. (Same for instance 
is true about regulating the global financial flow which has caused, and 
keeps causing, economic havoc, and against which a good part of Europe 
has started to revolt. )

SNIP

> Yes, I would have them on a equal footing. Being on an equal footing does not allow for any stakeholder to control or veto.  Unfortunately outside of perhaps the IETF, being on an equal footing is still a more a goal than a reality,

For the simple reason that larger public policy making has a very 
different context than technical policy making. This is the reason, for 
instance, any governance system excludes any party with conflict of 
interest, which important norm of democracy and public life gets 
over-ridden by your 'on equal footing' proposition. It is for this 
reason, that unlike ICANN for instance, no national telecom regulatory 
body will ever accept a telecom company rep to be its member. It is 
simply unthinkable. The 'equal footing' formula upstages this basic 
democratic principle, and this is why it is unacceptable.

This is why I find problems with multi-stakeholderism when it manifestly 
goes back on democratic principles. If you were advocating more and more 
civil society participation, and newer and newer concrete and plausible 
ways of such participation, we both would agree on almost everything. 
Checking abuse of power by governments is one of the most important jobs 
of civil society; but this is not to be achieved by becoming vehicles of 
putting corporates into seats of even more power than they have at present.

parminder

> I beleive neither government regulation nor self regulation has really worked. Or could work.
>
> So this is a good question, and the one I am asking, given there is a problem and given that one cannot trust governments or companies on their own to serve the public interest, how can we use this new multistakeholder model with all of the stakeholders on an equal footing to achieve the public interest.
>
> avri
>
>
>    
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