Letter in reply to
http://realdemocracymovement.org/the-power-and-the-potential-of-the-social-movement-behind-corbyn/
Gerry Gold| 30th August 2016 at 10:20 amLog in to Reply
Today, Jeremy Corbyn launched his digital democracy manifesto. It will not only
democratise the internet but use digital technologies to revolutionise the
process of democracy.
Here’s a summary of the Digital Democracy manifesto :
Universal Service Network – We will deliver high speed broadband and mobile
connectivity for every household, company and organisation in Britain from the
inner city neighbourhoods to the remotest rural community.
Open Knowledge Library – We will create a free-to-use on-line hub of learning
resources for the National Education Service.
Platform Cooperatives – We will foster the cooperative ownership of digital
platforms for distributing labour and selling services. The National Investment
Bank and regional banks will help to finance social enterprises whose websites
and apps are designed to minimise the costs of connecting producers with
consumers in the transport, accommodation, cultural, catering and other
important sectors of the British economy.
Digital Citizen Passport – We will develop a voluntary scheme that provides
British citizens with a secure and portable identity for their on-line
activities. The Digital Citizen Passport will be used when interacting with
public services like health, welfare, education and housing.
Programming For Everyone – We will require that all publicly funded software
and hardware is released under an Open Source licence.
A People’s Charter of Digital Liberty Rights – We will launch a public
consultation with people and parties across the political spectrum to draw up a
digital bill of rights.
Massive Multi-Person On-line Deliberation – We will utilise information
technologies to make popular participation in the democratic process easy and
inclusive. We will aim to organise both online and offline meetings for
individuals and communities to deliberate about pressing political issues and
participate in devising new legislation.
All in all this is an exciting set of proposals. But there’s plenty missing.
Most of all the party under Corbyn’s leadership needs to develop a bold new
system of social ownership for the entire digital infrastructure. What’s
urgently needed is a not-for-profit replacement for the insane global
competition that seeks to exploit the networks and storage in the Cloud, and
uses all of our individual identities as commodities for sale, targets for
advertising by the highest bidder.
Let’s look further to co-operative ownership for all of the global networks –
not just the information service providers, but extending its reach to
financial services including banking. That will require a Corbyn-led government
to work with other similar-minded governments throughout the world to implement
a new form of co-operative globalisation – not to coexist with but to replace
the domination of the global economy by rapacious transnational corporations
and vulture funds.
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