[governance] Internet as a commons/ public good

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> Even if IETF's processes do not follow the traditional patterns of
> democracy (in particular, they do not involve voting, and they make it
> hard for non-techies to participate) really the only major hurdles to
> effective participation in the decision-making processes that have been
> shaping the Internet (in the sense of the communication network, not
> talking about the broader sense of "Internet" right now that includes
> the epiphenomenon) have been willingness to engage and having a
> sufficient understanding of the subject matter under discussion to
> actually understand the suggestions and the relevant arguments.
> 
> The technical development of the Internet in its significant early
> formative stage was not driven by special interest type business
> interests, but by people who truly care about what I'd call the public
> interest.

[Milton L Mueller] So let's summarize your argument. There was nothing like "democracy" in the internet's early technical development, but the people who developed it were good people concerned with something you call "the public interest." It would be easy to challenge your romanticized version of early internet history, about which you clearly know very little, as well as to provide some evidence supporting it. But a more relevant question is, so what? 

A tiny, elite group of engineers did some good things in designing protocols and standardization processes. As a result, internetworking grew into a vast public infrastructure that transformed media and communication and created vast amounts of new wealth and challenged established forms of political authority. Once you've reached the point where there is political power, large amounts of money, and the entrenchment of certain interests, the whole game changes. Law, property rights, social conflict, political power, all start rushing in. Appealing to an idyllic past accomplishes little. Attaching broad, inaccurate labels ("Internet as commons") does nothing to resolve the problems in a way that responds to these new forces.

> In my view, those processes have been democratic in a very strong sense.
> Possibly even much more democratic than the processes of real-world
> parliamentary democracy are on average.

[Milton L Mueller] I'm sorry, but those processes were democratic only in relation to the very, very small group of men (about 95%) who participated in them. Who by the way were also about 95% American and European. The game is much bigger, many more people are involved, and now it is MORE democratic in that sense, and as a consequence of being more democratic, people bring their economic interests to the table. That is inevitable. It is part of democracy, you cannot insulate society from that. To a farmer, farm subsidies may be in the public interest, and certainly you cannot deny that farmers are part of the public. Any concept of democracy that has no role for the negotiation of economic interest is irrelevant. 

> I'm pretty sure that the Internet (again using the word in reference to
> the communication network, not the epiphenomenon) couldn't possibly have
> been developed in a totalitarian state.

[Milton L Mueller] Yes, and it could also not have been developed without capitalism and specifically the economic liberalization of the telecommunications industry. It could not have grown to its current size without the self-interested efforts of businesses who were making money on it. Massive private investments in bandwidth, software, services and content are involved. This is why your "public goods" fixation is so out of touch with reality. The internet's openness succeeded in harnessing private investment into a globally compatible infrastructure. You can't just focus on one side of that equation. 
 
> Governance of the epiphenomenon has always been primarily through the

[Milton L Mueller] A parenthetical. I have no idea what you mean by "the epiphenomenon." I suspect this dialogue will go better if you stop using idiosyncratic jargon.

> processes of parliamentary democracy that shape the laws that govern
> democratic societies; even if many of these laws do not explicitly
> reference the Internet, more and more of the various processes related
> to doing business and to living in a democratic society rely on the
> Internet in some way.

[Milton L Mueller] be careful of the fallacy that you can govern all of society by governing the internet. 
 
> Going forward, we need to make sure that these two forms of governance
> will not become incompatible with each other and will not create
> incompatible results.

[Milton L Mueller] They already are creating incompatible results. Pay attention to the role of the GAC in ICANN, or the attempt by numerous nation-states to wall off the internet to enforce national content regulations. 

> And perhaps most importantly, we need to make sure to avoid a future in
> which key aspects of the rules and principles that effectively govern
> society are decided neither by processes of parliamentary democracy nor
> by other processes that can also reasonably be accepted as democratic
> (such as the typical processes of IETF, the RIRs, etc) but by the
> business interests and economic power of a small number of global
> companies. IMO one major cause for concern is that all too often, the

[Milton L Mueller] You only see a threat from _business_ interests? No others? You need to check your eyesight. 

By the way, where does market-based governance figure in your world view? Granted that markets need to be checked (but so do democratic processes), they provide individual users and suppliers a great deal of freedom to interact in mutually acceptable ways. Why does this form of governance - which has played such a vital role in making the internet accessible and innovative and beneficial - NEVER show up in your discussions? 

> "principle of multistakeholder governance" is promoted in a way that is
> not at all incompatible with the quite anti-democratic potential future
> of giving economically powerful companies effectively a veto right on
> all rules that would affect them. Such "multistakeholder principle"
> based de-regulation of economically powerful Internet-based businesses
> would given them the opportunity to reshape societies according to their
> business interests, while effectively rendering even democratic
> parliaments powerless to do anything about it.
> 
> This is a human rights issue; specifically, the human right of the
> peoples to democratic self-determination is endangered here.

[Milton L Mueller] There are many ways in which you have to choose between Internet freedom and democratic self-determination. E.g., censorship laws such as the Communications Decency Act even in the U.S. are very popular. Repression of unpopular groups and views can be democratically popular. Law and order crackdowns that violate civil rights can be democratically approved. Etc., etc. In my view, individual rights to freedom of expression and association trump the right to "democratic self-determination." So there is more to this story than you seem to understand. 

-------------- 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