Power

ELON MUSK – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

~ steinringen ~ 1 Comment

As the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk has taken on (bought) one of the world’s most important editorial posts. He gets to decide who can and who cannot publish on his global site.

But look more closely to see that he is only in a very limited way an editor. He can exclude someone from using Twitter, or re-include someone previously excluded, but does not edit what gets published. Twitter, and similar sites, will in some cases remove offensive material after it has been posted but, short of banning a user, not (usually) block offensive material from getting published in the first place. He has power to include or exclude users, but not responsibility for what gets published. If I post a derogatory slur about a named person, the manager who has allowed me to use his site for the purpose cannot be held responsible.

This is all different in print media, newspapers and magazines. Such outlets must have a designated “editor,” whose responsibility it is to edit prospective material and who carries responsibility for what gets published. If a newspaper allows me to print a lie about someone, its editor can be held responsible. It is not enough that he removes the lie after it has been spread. A problem with social media sites such as Twitter is that responsibility stops nowhere or with anyone.

Social media bosses have claimed that they are just site managers, not publishers, and that it because of technology and global reach is not possible for them to be held editorially responsible. But that is a losing battle. In many countries, and very much in the European Union, regulatory frameworks are gradually coming into place. It is no longer accepted that managers hide behind technology to refuse responsibility.

However, such regulations that are coming into place generally fall short of imposing normal editorial responsibility on social media publishers. The amount of harmful, dangerous and offensive use of social media is staggering, and no one is in a position of last-resort responsibility. Mr. Musk wants Twitter to be an arena of his idea of free speech but cannot be held responsible when users abuse that liberty.

It would be a big step forwards if ongoing regulatory work designated social media sites to be publications and imposed normal editorial responsibility on those who run them. We expect of print media that they prevent harmful and offensive material from getting published and spread. We take it to be obvious that editors should be held responsible. We should do no less in electronic media. What is not allowed in print outlets, should not be allowed in IT outlets. An outlet being electronic, is no excuse for no one being responsible. Those who run social media sites are the technological geniuses. It is for them to work out how to manage their trade in conformity with normal standards of safety and decency. If they can’t do that, nor should they be able to operate.

Elon Musk wants the power to decide. That should come with also a duty of responsibility.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

VOTING MATTERS!

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American elections. High drama. After Tuesday, America will move in one or other direction. Americans increasingly see themselves as belonging to tribes which are each others’ enemies. If that is their world, they better use their vote. The outcome will be decided by who does not vote.

Look elsewhere to see the importance of the mundane business of voting. Last week in Brazil, the sitting president was ousted by a vote of 50.9% for his opponent. It is not a cliché to say of that election that every vote counted. In Britain in 2016, by 52% of the vote in a referendum, it was decided to leave the European Union. Older voters voted to leave, younger ones to stay. But the young did not turn out in sufficient numbers to save the day. Had as many of the young as the old voted, Brexit would not have happened and young Britons would have held on to their future in an open Europe.

Voting is not in high regard. Many do not bother to participate. Young people in particular tell each other that it does not matter, it’s all the same. Political scientists recommend models of democracy in which voting is secondary, such as “participatory democracy” or “deliberative democracy.” Theorists of “rationality” rubbish the vote because it does not bring the voter any “utility.”

But voting is THE core instrument of democracy. It gives citizens not only voice but also power. It is by the vote that citizens can threaten their representatives to deselect them (as just happened in Brazil) and thereby hold their use of power under control.

In How Democracies Live, I issue a warning against the reinvention-of-democracy literature. “Since democracy as we know it has run into trouble, let’s just consign it to the scrap heap of history and start all over with something new and better.” That is to underestimate what we have achieved, such as in the forceful instrument of the vote, and also to “give succor to the autocrats in Beijing and Moscow who boast superiority for autocracy precisely because they are able to claim that western democracy has proved impotent.” My recommendation is that we resolve to salvage democracy, not to reinvent it.

WHY DEMOCRACY? TENTH ADVANTAGE

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The tenth advantage of democracy: peace. Democratic countries do not fight wars against each other. This is true today, was true in all of the twentieth century, and was true in the nineteenth century in that countries with then democracy-like institutions did not fight each other. A more democratic world would promise to be also a more peaceful world.

The observation that countries in which governments are under some form of popular check are less likely to be warring, was first made by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in a publication of 1795 entitled Zum ewigen Frieden (Perpetual Peace). Here he not only proposed the equivalent of a UN Charter in which countries commit themselves to peaceful coexistence. He also recommended that countries should adopt republican constitutions since that would make them less prone to war.

The peaceful inclination in democratic governments is due partly to the distribution of power in the population. Since the glories of war accrue mainly to élites and the costs of war fall disproportionately on the populace, élites may incline more to war where they are not answerable to the populace and be more restrained from war where they are under popular control. Other reasons may be that democratic leaders and citizens learn the art of compromise, that they see people in other democratic countries as similar to themselves, and that their communality encourages a habit of peaceful negotiations and treaties.

The danger of war under non-democratic government is currently in evidence in Russia and China. Once Putin had dictatorial control at home, he felt able to go to war against Ukraine. Xi Jinping has ratcheted up war rhetoric against Taiwan (and annexed territory in the South China Sea) as as he has tightened his dictatorial grip in the mainland and Hong Kong.

A qualification: Democratic countries have not in the same way been able or willing to avoid war with non-democratic countries. They have fought wars of more or less defence against non-democratic aggressors, as in the Second World War. But they have also fought wars of aggression in self-interest, as for example the many and violent colonial wars that for example Britain and France engaged in during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Britain’s atrocious Opium Wars of state sponsored drug running against China.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

WHY DEMOCRACY? SEVENTH ADVANTAGE

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The seventh advantage of democracy: effectiveness. Strangely enough, and sometimes contrary to appearances, democratic government is generally the more effective government. One might think autocratic governments have the advantage that they can just get on with things without having to face dissatisfied NIMBY citizens (NIMBY: not-in-my-back-yard) or succumb to the short-termism of the next election. But democratic governments have effectiveness advantages of their own. They have an interest in delivery since citizens hold power over them. Autocratic governments may be able to get on with it, but that assumes that they are intent to deliver for citizens in the first place. Why should we assume that they are, when they are not under the pressure of people power? Democratic ones have it going for them of ruling by consent. That is helpful for them to get their policies accepted, since they are policies agreed upon through due process. And they have it going for them that they are meritocratic. Position is attained through competition. Political competition works out so that less motivated and qualified candidates do not prevail. Citizens can thereby have some confidence in their representatives and the policies they enact. To be sure, it does not always work out in real competitions that that the most qualified candidates win. Sometimes, far from it, often because the competition has been corrupted. But often, elected representatives are probably better at their jobs than critical citizens are prone to acknowledging. In autocratic systems, political position is attained by selection from above. Here, the most important qualification is usually obedience upwards and trustworthiness in the maintenance of autocracy.    

The best available evidence on effectiveness in government is in the World Bank’s “Worldwide Governance Indicators.” The highest scores are for the countries of North America, Western Europe and Oceania, all democracies. There are no non-democracies in the top range of this indicator (with the exception of the city-state of Singapore). In East Asia, the high-scoring countries are Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, while China, the darling of democracy’s detractors, is in the middle range, in a group of countries that includes, for example, India, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Argentina and Mexico. The other indicators in the World Bank’s analysis are “voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption.” There is a high level of correlation between these indicators and government effectiveness, suggesting that it is the institutional solidity which is a feature of democratic systems that gives these systems the edge in effectiveness.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

On redistribution and disincentives, see The Possibility of Politics.

WHY DEMOCRACY? FIRST ADVANTAGE

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Democracy has proved to come with striking advantages (for most people) compared to any known alternative form of government. The answer to the why-question is found in the identification of those advantages.

The first advantage of democracy: avoidance of tyranny. Writes Robert H. Dahl (in On Democracy): “Perhaps the most fundamental and persistent problem in politics is to avoid autocratic rule.” That tyranny is an endemic danger in government is abundantly clear from history, including the recent history of the twentieth century, and clear enough today when we look to, for example, China or Russia or Saudi Arabia. In all autocratic systems – absolutist monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies, outright dictatorships – there is an overwhelming risk of tyranny.

In democracies, the combination of government above and safety below is possible. It’s ingenious: we get both protection and protection from the protectors. We can allow our governments to rule because we are not at their mercy.

Governments hold vast powers. Power corrupts. Government for the people will only happen if government power is under popular control. Without control, government becomes tyrannical. Look to Putin’s Russia. Controls from below undermined, resulting in tyranny from above. Benevolent autocracy is a myth.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

On the backslide to tyranny in Russia, see Putin Has Turned Russia into an Unapologetic Autocracy.

On tyranny, see The Perfect Dictatorship.