[governance] The danger of blindly trusting the technocrats

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

Cool.  I was wrong.  Glad I checked.

My push-pull is that I definitely don't trust the so-called free market, but for many reasons i don't trust the government either.  
Though there are some in the corporate world I trust just as there are some in government I trust.

That is why I think the multistakeholder participatory models we are trying to craft are the only way to go.

avri

On 28 May 2013, at 12:04, Riaz Tayob wrote:

> Glad you checked on this. No, to answer your question, quite the opposite. As a democrat (not in the US party sense) I believe in the reality of choice and in using the democratic means to accomplish these aims. A free trade, laissez faire, libertarian or neoclassical view essentially is leave things to the market, self interest will manage things. Taken to its own logical end, it is passivity as a strategy. On the other hand there are those that recognise that self interest is continengent, markets also are political, and that where things "work" they should be left to the market (as cell phone deployment in Africa attests - albeit not with the same understandings that Milton has of this process, as it was oligopolistic rather than pure competition as created by the state to manage destructive competition). Activism coupled with idealism. Yes, this does go to first principles and how it shapes the discourse, hence the frequent disagreements because of initial starting points in the analysis. In short, democrats believe in the reality of choice and the need to shape our environment to ensure benefits and minimisation of social costs.
> 
> And on your specific reading of the Borg and futility and US activists participation in civil society:
> 
> 1. I frequently post matters by American civil society where there is confluence of values, eg EFF, ACLU, etc. Hence I cannot understand how you get to the "conclusions" you do... but it is an intimation of how you approach issues and I will bear that in mind that this is the interpretive framework applied, and here is where I need to be more sensitive so as to preclude such interpretations. But like you, I also find this tedious.
> 
> 2. The critical stance taken by me and imho is interpreted as anti-corporate or anti-American is under a very peculiar definition of anti-corporatism or anti-Americanism. As my history of posts will bear out, in the interests of discussions and engagement, I was happy to be anti-American based on the definition used by some on the list, a definition that is at best platitudinous or valid from a particular sensibility. But in these engagements the substance of the matter gets lost, even if a counterargument is put forth. It has been repeatedly said (and the record will bear me out) that corporate interests are valid, they should participate, but it is contingent if private vested interest shares the same interest as public interest (making money is reason enough, but not always). The fact that we have to repeatedly deal with this accusation is perhaps more akin to reasons in 1 above so I will not go into that. Reason I can deal with, win or loose, but I am not going to look for needles in the hay stack.
> 
> 3. And it is hard to reconcile your penultimate sentence with the final one, but happy to engage.
> 
> 
> On 28 May 2013 09:28, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:
> 
> On 28 May 2013, at 07:22, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
> 
> >  it seems like the Borg has it right as far as public interest in the US goes (of course from an outsider perspective looking in) - resistance is futile...
> 
> 
> Is it your point that if you are from the US you might as well forget participating in civil society because you are part of the corporate Borg and there is nothing you can do about it?  I have long suspected that that this belief was the underlying unspoken philosophy by many on this list, but this is the closest I think I have seen anyone actually say it outright.  So I figured I would check to make sure I understood correct, is that what you are saying?
> 
> avri
> 
> 
> 
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