[governance] In Multistakeholderism, those who would be Lobbyists become Legislators, & nobody else has a vote

Wed Oct 24 01:03:58 EDT 2012

Paul,

the theory in your posts is on track IMO.

However it does not model the processes being discussed and therefore the conclusions are rather a non sequitur.

Going back to the ICANN election which in part sparked this discussion, the electorate is not well formed. There is a basic, small electorate which pre-exists the election, and then there is the chance that each candidate will add a pool of followers whose vote is predetermined.

As mentioned some time ago, this is the equivalent of the situation in poor regions of my country and others in which the party with the money or the power carries hundreds of voters to each precinct by trucking them in. The level of capture is unacceptably undemocratic even if there is no money exchanged nor any other benefit traded.

A vote in this context can only work if the electorate comprises a huge fraction of the world's population. I hope the delusion of a single global government scares you as much as it does me, or at least appears as much of a delusion.

We are left with multistakeholderism and managing its deficit if we actually want to get something done, while the larger issues get fixed or remain unsolved. Full awareness of the problem helps us curtail the abuses. And a lot of principled people are involved, genuinely invested in keeping the game fair and open. Checks and balances, as well as mechanisms to review, revise, and redress decisions, due process, etc. are being put in place and tested

This may be a poor remedy for our haughty aspirations. But the alternatives are being tested as well and turning out worse.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

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________________________________
Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de Paul Lehto [lehto.paul at gmail.com]
Enviado el: martes, 23 de octubre de 2012 21:12
Hasta: Suresh Ramasubramanian
CC: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Asunto: [governance] In Multistakeholderism, those who would be Lobbyists become Legislators, & nobody else has a vote

The subject line says it most succinctly: In Multistakeholderism, those who would be Lobbyists become Legislators, & nobody else has a vote.

In a democracy, it is a scandal that lobbyists have so much influence that they even write the drafts of laws.  But in multistakeholder situations they take that scandal to a whole new level:  those who would be lobbyists in a democracy (corporations, experts, civil society) become the legislators themselves, and dispense with all public elections and not only write the laws but pass them, enforce them, and in some cases even set up courts of arbitration that are usually conditioned on waiving the right to go to the court system set up by democracies.

A vote is just a minimum requirement of justice. Without a vote, law is just force inflicted by the wealthy and powerful. Multistakeholderism is a coup d'etat against democracy by those who would merely be lobbyists in a democratic system.  So yes, I think it is misleading at best to use the word "democratic" in reference to multistakeholder systems.

Paul R. Lehto, J.D.
--
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com<mailto:lehto.paul at gmail.com>
906-204-4965 (cell)

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