[governance] Principles

Tue Oct 23 18:24:10 EDT 2012

When aristocrats or oligarchs get together, certain procedural things
within the ruling junta can be quite "democratic", very much like
Multi-stakeholderism can have internal procedures amongst the ruling junta
that appear quite fair-minded.  These internal procedures, though they may
seem democratic, don't make aristocracy or oligarchy democratic at all.  It
just means these rulers act like equals and are civil to each other,
perhaps even willing to listen once in a while to the masses.

Whether something is democratic or aristocratic/oligarchic is measured not
WITHIN the organization, but by reference to those whose voice is not
recognized (via representatives) in the form of a vote in the matters at
hand.

Multistakeholderism is not democracy, and it is misleading at best to use
the term "democratic" to describe procedures within Multistakeholderism.
Until every voter has the right to exercise their vote to "kick the bums
out" (their own representative) it's not democracy.

Paul Lehto, J.D.

> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 2:49 AM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:
>
> I rather take a rather different position, which is that stakeholderism
> is oligarchy and not democratic at all.

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 5:53 PM, Vanda UOL <vanda at uol.com.br> wrote:

> Very interesting Karl, we need take care with the private monopoly where
> nothing that people can do to change things will be heard. Countries facing
> loss of power are, deeper and deeper  trying to get something to at least
> keep their own status quo, no new in this side. What needs to be new is the
> way the governance in several aspects of Internet. I am not seeing good
> news in this side.
> Best,
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:
> governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] Em nome de Karl Auerbach
> Enviada em: terça-feira, 2 de outubro de 2012 18:25
> Para: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Assunto: Re: [governance] Principles
>
> On 10/01/2012 03:10 PM, Koven Ronald wrote:
>
> > ... posited on the notion that the Internet has revoked the 2,500
> > previous years of political philosophy and history.
>
> More like about 370 years - since the Treaty of Westphalia.
>
> The truth is that that world of geograhic-bounded nation-states *is*
> eroding; the edges of nation-states are getting fuzzy, especially since
> 1945 with the rise of nation-agile multinational corporations and since
> the mid 1990's with the rise of the internet and world wide web.
>
> The granules of power that are eroding from the edges of nation-states are
> not disappearing, they are flowing into the hands of either private actors
> or bodies of internet governance.
>
> Those granules represent plenary, often non-reviewable, authority over
> matters affecting the internet and its users.
>
> When I was on the Board of Directors of ICANN I had fun tweeking the nose
> of a US Senator when I informed him of the indisputable fact that I, in
> conjunction with about 10 other Directors, could pass a rule over internet
> use of trademarks and names that would supersede and trump anything that
> he, as a mere United States Senator, could enact.
>
> He got angry - much in the way we see the fear and anger of nation states
> bubbling over in attempts to re-assert and re-insert national governments
> into these new bodies of governance.
>
> We are building internet governance on models that are more from the era
> of flower-power and high-hopes rather than on the 18th century models that
> recognize the aggregation of unchecked power and try to constrain that
> aggregation, models that form the basis of many national constitutions of
> today.
>
> We have forgotten history.
>
> Several of us have proposed various models of internet governance - and
> these models have all emphasized small, extremely limited, and clearly
> separated bodies, with extremely limited, if any, discretionary powers,
> each wrapped around exactly one highly and clearly defined internet
> governance issue.
>
> That model of concise, tightly shrink-wrapped, and almost clerical bodies
> of governance would help eliminate the opportunity for a body to dance
> among the issues to leverage one issue against another to the tune played
> by whatever group of stakeholders has captured that body.  We saw that
> happen with ICANN when it staved off insolvency some years ago by making an
> implicit pact with the address registries so that ICANN could have the cash
> to to survive and assert its role over domain names.
>
>         --karl--
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>
> For all other list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>
>

-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4965 (cell)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20121023/03a03ebb/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t