[NCUC-DISCUSS] FW: Maintaining Systems

Mon Oct 27 22:19:06 CET 2014

It's complicated.

I think nothing much has really changed in the last 40 years except for
the continued hollowing-out of the middle class, generally.  This has
exacerbated the problems of civil society that have been there from
primeval times: the so-called "collective action problem" prevents full
mobilization of a broad constituency (like "the public interest" or "the
99%"), compared to mobilizing a narrow constituency with similar total
resources (like "private mega-corporations" or "the 1% plutocracy").

It has *always* been difficult to mobilize a constituency of millions with
ten dollars each, as compared with a constituency of dozens with a million
dollars each (this is of course a simplified example, but the dynamic
exists even in more nuanced circumstances).  This is the essential
structural obstacle of civil society organizations: funding to match that
of the actual constituency's "demand" for representation.

So, in order to get resources to compare with the narrow interests, some
organizations will become dependent upon resources from narrow sources,
which may skew their attention and activities (those are the ones with the
soirees).  For those that remain pure and unskewed, they usually remain
relatively poor and weak as a result (these are the ones without the
soirees, except being included for show while being kept well-controlled
or well-excluded from anything substantive).

Assange's comments quoted here seem focused on only one cross-section of
civil society, not the full range of it which has a very long "long tail"
of volunteer and near-volunteer activity that falls mostly under the radar
of any measurement efforts, especially if these groups have not formally
incorporated, or at least fail to acquire enough income to require them to
file tax returns (this is a US-centric comment).  Perhaps he is justified
in ignoring the long tail, because really, how much significant effect
does it have on anything at the end of the day?  Many of these are very
local and do not address global politics -- more like soup kitchens for
the homeless or things like that.

When someone figures out how to solve this conundrum they will be rightly
celebrated as a genius, because right now nobody has a clue how to do
anything other than whittle lightly at the edges of this puzzle. 
Crowd-sourcing technology has a few glimmers of possibility, but what has
been implemented at present is only a tiny step in the desired direction.

Money makes the world go around.  That's true for NGOs as much as any
other institutions.  As economists know quite well, the collective public
interest will always be underfunded relative to its total demand.

BTW, I don't see this being solved or even incrementally improved in the
multi-stakeholder model.  Those who step up to the plate are often heroes,
because they are doing it in personal free time with personal disposable
income.  Most of the general public has neither, and with the reduction of
the middle class this is more true now than ever in recent times.

Dan

-- 
Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and
do not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.

On Mon, October 27, 2014 8:39 am, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
> Come to ICANN, Tamir!  All kinds of soirees, although rarely are we
> invited...you have to be willing to crash parties.  And raise your own
> travel budget...
> Very interesting comments.  I think it is one of the biggest risks
> facing civil society....fake civil society.  IMHO a battle we are losing.
> Cheers Stephanie
>
>
> On 2014-10-27, 10:58, Tamir Israel wrote:
>> I keep hearing stuff like this. I wish someone would tell me where we
>> can sign up for our 'soiree' budget.... we've never really been able
>> to find any such thing.....
>>
>> On 27/10/2014 10:54 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>>
>>> Very interesting. I bought the book.
>>>
>>> Assange has some pretty harsh comments about the idea of an
>>> autonomous civil society:
>>>
>>> "Cohen's world seems to be one event like this after another: endless
>>> soirees for the cross-fertilization of influence between elites and
>>> their vassals, under the pious rubric of "civil society." The
>>> received wisdom in advanced capitalist societies is that there still
>>> exists an organic "civil society sector" in which institutions form
>>> autonomously and come together to manifest the interests and will of
>>> citizens. The fable has it that the boundaries of this sector are
>>> respected by actors from government and the "private sector," leaving
>>> a safe space for NGOs and nonprofits to advocate for things like
>>> human rights, free speech and accountable government.
>>>
>>> This sounds like a great idea. But if it was ever true, it has not
>>> been for decades. Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like
>>> unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by
>>> free-market statism, transforming "civil society" into a buyer's
>>> market for political factions and corporate interests looking to
>>> exert influence at arm's length. The last forty years have seen a
>>> huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose,
>>> beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy."
>>>
>>> *From:*ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org
>>> <mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org>
>>> [mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] *On Behalf Of *DeeDee
>>> Halleck
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, October 25, 2014 11:10 AM
>>> *To:* ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>
>>> *Subject:* [NCUC-DISCUSS] Maintaining Systems
>>>
>>> http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447
>>>
>>> a useful read.
>>>
>>> xx
>>>
>>> DeeDee
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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