Giving Hope to the Under-represented Masses
In his classic 1960’s work Semi-Sovereign People, E. E. Schattschneider wrote that the masses will always be under-represented in government because they lack the organization and financial capital necessary to be heard in a pluralistic political system. While this was certainly true then, there is hope that the internet offers an opportunity to change that calculation.
Central to Schattschneider’s argument is the notion that private interests are more likely to be addressed than public interests. Most of us are familiar with the argument. In a free market, public goods are systematically under-produced, in part due to the free rider problem elegantly explained by Mancur Olson. In order to address this market failure, we must turn to government regulation to ensure the production of public goods, including clean air, clean water, and public communications channels.
Unfortunately, as we still see in cases like power utilities, well-organized and heavily funded private interests are still able to pressure the government to deregulate and undermine the ability of the under-represented masses to have access to affordable energy. One only needs to look at the role Enron played in the deregulation of electric power markets and their ensuing efforts to game the system for private financial gain to see how pervasive and insidious this dynamic can be.
The success of private interests in America at shaping public policy is due to the leveraging of two powerful resources: interlocking directorates and vast amounts of financial capital (see http://www.theyrule.net/2004/tr2.php for an analysis of how the top corporations in America are networked by having common board members). Note, the success of these private interests rarely, if ever rely upon grassroots activism to promote their policy agenda. Let’s face it; it is hard to create a grassroots movement to promote the improvement of a company’s profit margin.
In order to galvanize policy change to support the public interest, it is essential to create some counter-weight to interlocking directorates and financial capital leveraged by private interests. The masses lack the financial capital, but they do have to potential to leverage vast amounts of social capital, if only they could organize. Enter the internet.
As the internet approaches maturity, we are seeing the emergence of social networking platforms that are connecting ordinary citizens to each other in powerful ways. Platforms such as MySpace, Flickr, Care2, Yahoo 360, Facebook, and Friendster are creating robust means for people to create deep relationships with each other regardless of geographic proximity.
The real potential for hope for improving the lot of the under-represented masses lies in the connecting of these social networks to each other. Simply by linking key members of each community to each other, social networks can band together to create ever-more powerful social networks. In essence we are seeing the emergence of interlocking memberships leveraging social capital as a counter-weight to interlocking directorates and financial capital.
In an early test case, we are seeing a mass social protest against the House of Representative’s draconian immigration bill. Using a combination of online networking tools like MySpace, instant messaging, and SMS text messaging, the immigrant community in America has launched an ongoing demonstration that has mobilized millions of citizens across the nation. While the issue is still unresolved (at the time of this writing), already we have seen the protest leading to a delay of consideration in the Senate and a compromise Senate bill that balances the crack-down on the border found in the House bill with a guest worker program that provides a path to citizenry for the 12 million illegal immigrants already here.
Thus the hope the internet provides to creating social progress rests to a large degree in its ability to provide the traditionally under-represented masses with the ability to band together and create powerful social movements to counter the large budgets of private interests. As long as we continue to allow unfettered access to the internet, this potential will be realized.
As we move forward, though, we are seeing challenges to this potential in the form of efforts by the telecommunications industry to undermine “net neutrality.” Current efforts to require high fees to ensure high-speed access to the internet backbone are a real threat to this emerging potential for positive social change. Stay tuned for more on this as it evolves. The world is changing and forces opposing change are gathering their financial capital to wage war on the masses.