[governance] <nettime> VW

Fri Oct 2 14:57:37 EDT 2015

McTim,

The continuously repeated argument from (the) history (of the Internet) is seriously flawed.  Whatever the actual history of the Internet there have been numerous initiatives—automobiles, electricity, even the spinning jenny which started with individual or collective (private) initiative but which morphed into something of such overwhelming social significance that there was the need for intervention and ultimately regulation in the broad public interest.  In each instance the private operators who had pioneered were either more or less reluctant to respond positively to this (they saw their property interests being threatened) but the need for pursuing the public interest was so overwhelming that these were overridden.

So, to my mind the real question and perhaps the one we should be addressing beyond the various ideological positions being put forward, is how do we best pursue the public interest in this particular domain given the very specific particularities of the Internet, including of course the need for expert contribution to manage whatever interventions are finally decided upon.

M

From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of McTim
Sent: October 2, 2015 6:31 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Cc: Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org>
Subject: Re: [governance] <nettime> VW

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 4:25 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net> > wrote:

On Monday 28 September 2015 10:07 PM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:

On 27/09/2015 3:16 pm, Michael Gurstein wrote:

Significant portions of Civil Society have bought into this approach which is firmly premised on the notion that somehow the private sector should be directly involved in making governance decisions because well, they are so public spirited, or that they have the long term interests of everyone at heart ("they are people too aren't they"), or we can trust them much more than those perfidious folks in government, or they are "accountable" to their shareholders and wouldn't do anything completely untoward to risk shareholder value etc.etc. (you know the drill...

No, not really that at all.  They have to be involved because they are
already involved.  For now, the decisions of companies like Facebook and
Google about their terms of service and so on are de facto transnational
rules for the Internet, at least as much as the rules that governments
make (collectively or individually).  So it impossible to disentangle
these companies from the process of situating those rules within a more
accountable global framework of principle.

Jeremy, basically you are accepting that, in your view, democracy is no longer feasible or to be preferred, or both, in matters of Internet governance. 

Now you are just trolling, Jeremy neither said nor meant what you are saying.

He is merely pointing out the obvious reality.

That is a remarkable claim/ acceptance, even though it is what has always underpinned the equal footing multi-stakeholder model. 

Disagree.  What underpins the multi-equal stakeholder model is the collaborative ethos of the early Internet.

The rest of your argument is based on the above flawed premises, and so needs no comment.

Regards,

McTim

To that extent I commend your honesty and integrity which is much more than what can be said about most other supporters of the equal footing model who tend to simply disappear from any discussion when they are asked to come down to actual implications (both theoretical and practical) of such a model.

That compliment for honesty and forthrightness having been paid, may I ask you a question. How is your assertion different from the claims of the feudal class during early days of the evolution of democracy, say, In England, for the biggest pie of the national level political decision making power, on the basis that they owned large-scale landed property, and thus held control over the key productive resources of that time - thereby also setting the de facto rules in most aspects of contemporary social life, ... This can be seen the history of the House of Lords, and also the fact that for a very long time ownership of property was  a condition of enfranchisement....

What you are advocating, albeit by presenting it as something inevitable, I see is exactly the same... Corporates today 'own' the biggest chunks of what are the contemporary key productive resources, and of what on the Internet can comparably be called as  digital estate and thus setting in your words 'de facto transnational rules for the Internet'. You give this as the logic for why we should accept them to be given a highly disproportionate role in the political governance of the Internet and the associated phenomenon. I say disproportionate because every shareholder, big or small, of these companies does already have a political role equal to every other person (minus the difference that power of various resources make, but lets disregard that for the moment) .

What you are presenting is directly a case for digital fedualism, which equal footing multistakeholderism of course really is. I am astonished that such a philosophy can have such widespread support as equal footing multistakeholderism indeed has in some very dominant circles of Internet governance. 

Aligning political power to economic power, at institutional levels and not just in hidden, informal ways which have always existed, is what the current global neoliberal design currently is. (An important traditional role of political power has been to regulate and rein in the execesses of economic power.) The World Economic Forum is often considered as its key global nerve centre, although I'd say it will be more factual to say that the primary nerve centre is in fact still solidly inside the US economic and political establishments. This most important global problem and danger is extensively recognised among global civil society movements, and is actively resisted. It is the fact that these dangerous global developments are, on the other hand, actually supported by a big chunk of civil society in the Internet governance space which creates a significant dissonance that this space has with the mainstream global civil society. 

parminder

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-- 

Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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