[governance] Debunking eight myths about multi-stakeholderism

[Michael Gurstein]

Jeremy, 

You really must stop making things up that suit your argument but that have
no basis in reality.  

As one of those whom you refer to in your MS "Jeremiad" I would like you to
point to a passage in any of my writing on MSism where the following is
either stated directly or even inferred--"representative democracy is the
one thing that they most want to preserve in future Internet governance
arrangements...

My own, oft stated position is that there is a crisis in democratic
processes and we need to find alternative and very likely technology enabled
ways of proceeding for effective and efficient democratic governance.
However, we would be extremely  ill-advised to take this crisis as
justification for substituting governance by the elite few as through MSism
for governance by the many as through democracy.

M

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Norbert Bollow
Sent: April 29, 2015 1:09 AM
To: Jeremy Malcolm
Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Debunking eight myths about multi-stakeholderism

On Tue, 28 Apr 2015 14:15:42 -0700
Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:

> On 27/04/2015 7:11 pm, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> > And national governments: If we accept the theory that those 
> > governments honestly and accurately express the values and interests 
> > of their citizens, then why do we do need any other participants 
> > than governments?  The answer is obvious: We have learned that 
> > governments, just like corporations, tend to be driven by small 
> > opaque groups and express the short-term interests of those groups.
> 
> Few other multi-stakeholder skeptics will buy this, because 
> representative democracy is the one thing that they most want to 
> preserve in future Internet governance arrangements.  Your ideals of 
> direct democracy holding back corporations and governments are seen as 
> even more utopian than multi-stakeholder ideals.  But IMHO 
> multi-stakeholderism and direct democracy are not that far apart 
> conceptually; the main difference is that the latter is more difficult 
> to realise in practice and is more vulnerable to majoritarian tyranny.

Who are those multi-stakeholder skeptics in regard to whom you claim that
"representative democracy is the one thing that they most want to preserve
in future Internet governance arrangements"?

Greetings,
Norbert
co-convenor, Just Net Coalition



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