[governance] The danger of blindly trusting the technocrats

[Riaz Tayob]

Cool bananas! :)



On 28 May 2013 13:31, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:

> 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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