Ted and all,
Far be it from me to second guess the insight (or well-placed cynicism) of
Nettimer folks but dare I say that not all folks who should be, are quite as
perspicacious.
The flavour of the day in global governance circles--think managing the
Internet (ICANN etc.), the environment, "sustainable development" and on and on
is what is being called "multistakeholderism" i.e. where governments, the
private sector, civil society and all get together and "find consensus"
solutions on to how to manage the world for the rest of us.
Significant portions of Civil Society have bought into this approach which is
firmly premised on the notion that somehow the private sector should be
directly involved in making governance decisions because well, they are so
public spirited, or that they have the long term interests of everyone at heart
("they are people too aren't they"), or we can trust them much more than those
perfidious folks in government, or they are "accountable" to their shareholders
and wouldn't do anything completely untoward to risk shareholder value etc.etc.
(you know the drill...
But if VW can and will commit fraud and what is in effect a crime against
humanity for short term financial (and/or ego) gains then what might one expect
from lesser lights with perhaps less to lose and who aren't so deeply enmeshed
in what should have been (and what purportedly was) a deep web (errr network)
of accountability, responsibility, enforced integrity etc. (as per your
comments...
What VW tells us (and why "motivation" is worth looking at) is that when push
comes to shove we really really need some structures of accountability that are
responsive to "our", the public's needs and not the shareholders and that
multistakeholderism as a system of governance is basically giving away the keys
to the kingdom.
Mike
-Original Message-
From: nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org
[mailto:nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org] On Behalf Of t byfield
Sent: September 27, 2015 12:08 PM
To: nettim...@kein.org
Subject: Re: VW
On 25 Sep 2015, at 20:59, Michael Gurstein wrote:
> Thanks Ted, very useful.
>
> I guess what I'm curious about is the motivations, individual and/or
> corporate thought processes/incentives etc. that underlie the initial
> decision to go down this path and then the multitude of decisions at
> various levels up and down the organization to continue on this path.
<...>
Michael, your line of questions seems to be a high priority for the
media: today's NYT top story is "As Volkswagen Pushed to Be No. 1,
Ambitions Fueled a Scandal." Personally, I don't think there's been much
innovation in the motivation dept since, say, Sophocles, so the
human-interest angle isn't very interesting, IMO. If anything, it's the
primary mechanism in diverting attention from the real problem, namely,
how to address malfeasance on this scale. Corporations are treated as
'people' when it comes to privatizing profit, but when it comes to
liabilities they're become treated as amorphous, networky constructs, and
punishing them becomes an exercise in trying to catch smoke with your
hands. Imagine for a moment that by some improbable chain of events VW
ended up facing a 'corporate death penalty,' there remain all kinds of
questions about what restrictions would be imposed on the most culpable
officers, how its assets would be disposed of, and what would happen to
its intellect
ual property. (It'd be funny if the the VW logo was banned, eh? I'm not
suggesting anything like that could actually happen, of course.) The
peculiar details of this scandal could spark a systemic crisis of a
different kind, one that makes evading guilt more difficult. The 'too
complex for mere mortals' line won't work in this
case: VWs have come a long way since the Deutsche Arbeitsfront or R.
Crumb-like illustrated manuals about _How to Keep your Volkswagen
Alive_, but not so far that people will blindly accept that they can't
understand them. Popular understanding of negative externalities in
environmentalism is decades ahead of its equivalent in finance. And it
doesn't hurt that Germany, which has done so much to bend the EU to its
will, looks like it'll be the lender of last resort.
<...>
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