Re: FW: [atlarge-discuss] Challenge from Ross Rader 1.4

[espresso@e-scape.net]

Bravo to Judith who came up with an excellent and quite comprehensive answer to the challenge. Meanwhile...

Jkhan wrote:
>> The Magna Carta "Law for the Elite" vs. The Common Law "Law for the
>> People"

And eric@hi-tek.com responded:
>Wait a second, you need to make sure that people understand that the 
>law for the elite was to protect the People from the elite and yes it 
>sucked.. it was the first law to reign in any elite.

Actually, the purpose of Magna Carta was to protect the noble warlords (a pretty bad lot) from King John (no prize himself) who previously, as their liege lord, had absolute power over them. Any benefits that accrued to the common people were largely accidental to the process of reducing an unfettered absolute monarchy to an absolute monarchy that could not legally interfere in the "private business" of feudal lords oppressing peasants. 

>Common law was for non-elite to non elite.

It took an awfully long time for notions like common people being judged by a jury of their peers to "trickle down". Magna Carta was signed in 1215. "Universal suffrage" did not apply to non-landowners in Britain and its colonies until the 19th century, and did not include adult women until the 20th. Eric said 500 years but it was actually more than 700!

There is certainly a movement afoot in the modern world to return to the "good old days" of feudalism, when "government" meant "whatever serves the interests of the wealthy elite" and the role of us peasants was primarily to labour for our overlord's benefit in return for bare subsistence, and to be captive customers for the overlord's business enterprises. 

Back then it was easy: make it illegal for the peasant to grind his own grain in a quern (as he had done since agriculture began) and you can be sure of a steady income from your mill. Now it's a little more complicated in most places -- the common people are so "spoiled" they are no longer content to live on oatmeal and water while they make others rich, and it's not easy to legislate them back to serfdom if they're the ones who elect the government.

On the Internet, however, it's actually pretty easy. All you need to do is give control of its governance to those elected or appointed by those who exploit the 'Net for commercial gain. Then the role of the common people is simple: to pay for domain names and to pay for all Internet-related services and content, including the cost of maintaining its governors in the style to which they (but not we) are accustomed. If they can't or won't pay, they always have the option of not participating in the modern world. If they complain their interests are being neglected or their chances at a livelihood destroyed ... well, after all, who really cares about the wellbeing of peasants anyway? 

Not the telecoms, registrars, stockholders in ICT businesses, providers of e-commerce "solutions", etc. Usually not the administrators, programmers, engineers, etc. employed by those industries -- mostly, they either are or aspire to join the ruling elite by exercising their stock options.

Not the politicians who mostly don't understand what the Internet is, how it works, and how powerful a tool it can be beyond its purely commercial implications. Especially not if they are neoliberals to begin with and fervently believe that anybody who doesn't have capital deserves to be exploited and oppressed for the benefit of those that do. Few political parties with "democrat" in their names believe in democracy as we understand the word ... or perhaps they've just returned to the ancient Athenians' definition, whereby "democracy" definitely did not give the helots and slaves a vote.

Why should the ordinary Internet users have a say? Primarily because it is clearly unfair to disenfranchise them in this as in any other type of governance. Oligarchs -- even well-intentioned ones -- can't help thinking of their own interests before they think of protecting the public interest. 

If anything, it's a lot *more* important that a family in Bangladesh or Borneo have ready access to the Internet (inexpensive source of education, health information, means of communicating with distant relatives, etc.) that that a North American or European can download cheap entertainment or send spam more cheaply than junk-mail. Their chances of having that access thanks to the benevolence of those who would run the Internet for profit are pretty dim. So are the odds that those who can make big bucks from owning infrastructure in places like China and Myanmar will forego making profitable deals with their governments which preclude open access to information for the ordinary citizen.

One of the biggest obstacles to real democracy has always been the difficulty the ordinary citizen faces when trying to vote --the cost of travel to distant polls, the control of the registration process by partisan interests, the adverse consequences (sometimes including death) for trying to vote for the "wrong" party, etc. The Internet holds the promise that every citizen in every nation will one day be able to cast a ballot, regardless of where he or she lives, regardless of whether he or she is voting the way somebody else dictates, and by a secret ballot which should greatly reduce the risk of reprisals. 

I don't believe that will happen if Internet governance is a "private-public partnership" between those who see the 'Net as a profit-centre and those who see it as a threat to the political status quo. 

I do believe that, if the worldwide citizenry is given even a limited role in an Internet governance mechanism with effective built-in checks and balances, the Internet can be a powerful force for international co-operation, social justice, and (dare I say it) even a new civilization where the respect of individual persons and of the public good matter more than they do under what we have now. That may sound terribly unrealistic to some and overly idealistic to others but I believe all of us could use a good model for civilized behaviour and co-operation in working toward common goals. Internet governance is more limited and much less controversial (in the outside world) that the governance of nations, international trade  and economic globalization; it could well show in microcosm what can be achieved when ordinary people around the world are given real opportunities to work together.

Regards,

Judyth

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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My apologies if you are receiving this late - I've been
exceptionally busy this week and fell behind with e-mail.
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