[governance] Are Techies from Venus and Non-techies from Mars :)

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

I am afraid I have to call myself a techie of sorts, but I have never seen competition policy as being solely about limiting cartels. Though, monopolies of one kind or the other, especially state sanctioned ones, are current or past significant drivers of competition policy in telecom in some countries so I can see where that narrow view might originate,

The divide at least here seems to be leftist ideology (with perhaps some marked hostility to the current system) supposedly espousing the causes of "the south" among some commentators versus what I would describe as a more centrist plank (which has been described as right wing on occasion) among others that is focused on hands on development.

The key word I keep seeing differentiated is "policy" which seems to be taken to mean "politics" by some and not by others, and by extension, best practices and administration on one side, and an effort to gain control on the other.

--srs (iPad)

On 31-Jan-2013, at 4:12, Kerry Brown <kerry at kdbsystems.com> wrote:

> I think you have hit on something here. I don't know if the divide is techie and non-techie but it certainly seems to me that not everyone on this list or even in the greater context of other Internet governance forums thinks of key words like competition or collaboration in the same way. I find I am often at a loss to understand where someone is coming from until we start defining the terms we are using. Then as often as not we find ourselves in agreement where before we weren't. In the case of competition and collaboration I find myself very much on the techie side of your definitions. I was somewhat baffled at some of the conversation. Now that you have defined how you understand the terms it begins to make sense.
> 
> Kerry Brown
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
>> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
>> Sent: January-30-13 1:22 PM
>> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> Subject: [governance] Are Techies from Venus and Non-techies from Mars :)
>> 
>> In the course of some private discussions with techie colleagues concerning
>> my comments on RFC 6852  it fairly quickly became clear that we were using
>> the terminology around "competition"and "collaboration" in quite different--
>> in fact, diametrically opposite, ways.
>> 
>> For me "competition" evokes market based relationships and in fact, in most
>> policy discourses "competition" is generally used as a code word for the
>> pursuit of private interests and "free markets" a la the Washington
>> Consensus actively promoting the opening up of telecom markets globally (as
>> Milton quite correctly, if disparagingly, understood in his reply to my original
>> comments).  Similarly for me "collaboration" refers to the joint puruit of
>> common goals (as for example, social collaboration in support of the public
>> interest, or p2p relationships, social solidarity and so on) and in a policy
>> context would be appropriate to interpose as a balance to a position
>> supporting "competition".
>> 
>> For my tech colleagues the understanding, at least according to two non-
>> communicating tech folks was that "competition" is seen as being the means
>> by which to "limit the power of otherwise overly powerful corporations and
>> cartels". While on the other hand "collaboration" needs to be controlled
>> "otherwise it will lead to the formation of harmful cartels".  (While these
>> latter uses of the terms are clearly correct they would never have occurred
>> to me, at least, as being primary definitions that might be used in a document
>> such as RFC 6852.)
>> 
>> (As an aside, I'm wondering whether at least some of the disputes that have
>> been recurrent themes of the IGC discussions might not have similar origins
>> in rather profound domain centric mutual misunderstandings as to the use of
>> quite common terms.)
>> 
>> M
> 
> 
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