Its ironic that State Capitalist China is the first country to really challenge the State Capitalist Monopoly of ICANN over the Internet. And predictably the monopolizers who want to keep it under American hegemony were crying the sky is falling.China to split the Internet
News report that said China was creating its own domain names was incorrect.
Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Mar 2nd 2006 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
China threatens to fracture the internet
The internet is managed by a private-sector body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), operating under the authority of the American government. Many countries oppose this, and argue that the internet should be managed internationally, as is the telephone system. Indeed, China's Ministry of Information Industries, via the People's Daily, trumpeted the new scheme as a way to bypass ICANN.
Which is why Kropotkin championed the Postal System as an example of Federalist Anarchism. And the phone system modeled itself on the Postal Agreements.
Anarchists often point out the success of the postal system, which despite being hierarchically organized with a boss, has no central postal leader, simply various autonomous postal outposts. Federations and networks of doctors and other workers could follow this method as well, and apply anarchist principles to its organizational structure. Anarchism at AllExperts
The same could be said of the Internet and its assigned names. These need to be operated under international agreements not beholden to private companies that are arms of the state, especially the American Empire.
It's ironic that the anarchistic nature of the net is being crushed by its success as a new model of corportate infrastructure and geo-political cyberwarfare. Those that support America's hegemony over the net do so for all the bad old reactionary Cold War reasons.
Whereas the internet provides an excellent vehicle for production, distribution, exchange and communication in a complex manner that would be perfectly adaptable to the ideas of anarchist organization of society.
Faced with the objection that even though it can be shown that autonomous groups can organise themselves on a large scale and for complex tasks, it has not been shown that they can successfully co-ordinate, we resort once again to the federative principle. There is nothing outlandish about the idea that large numbers of autonomous industrial units can federate and co-ordinate their activities. If you travel across Europe you go over the lines of a dozen railway systems - capitalist and communist - co-ordinated by freely arrived at agreement between the various undertakings, with no central authority. You can post a letter to anywhere in the world, but there is no world postal authority, - representatives of different postal authorities simply have a congress every five years or so. Colin Ward: Anarchism as a Theory of Organization (1966)
Anarchists see the need for international agreements,not State control of the internet, and Kropotkin gives us a good explanation of why.
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Internet, China, America, WWW, ICANN, networks,
The internet is managed by a private-sector body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), operating under the authority of the American government. Many countries oppose this, and argue that the internet should be managed internationally, as is the telephone system. Indeed, China's Ministry of Information Industries, via the People's Daily, trumpeted the new scheme as a way to bypass ICANN.
Which is why Kropotkin championed the Postal System as an example of Federalist Anarchism. And the phone system modeled itself on the Postal Agreements.
Anarchists often point out the success of the postal system, which despite being hierarchically organized with a boss, has no central postal leader, simply various autonomous postal outposts. Federations and networks of doctors and other workers could follow this method as well, and apply anarchist principles to its organizational structure. Anarchism at AllExperts
The same could be said of the Internet and its assigned names. These need to be operated under international agreements not beholden to private companies that are arms of the state, especially the American Empire.
It's ironic that the anarchistic nature of the net is being crushed by its success as a new model of corportate infrastructure and geo-political cyberwarfare. Those that support America's hegemony over the net do so for all the bad old reactionary Cold War reasons.
Whereas the internet provides an excellent vehicle for production, distribution, exchange and communication in a complex manner that would be perfectly adaptable to the ideas of anarchist organization of society.
Faced with the objection that even though it can be shown that autonomous groups can organise themselves on a large scale and for complex tasks, it has not been shown that they can successfully co-ordinate, we resort once again to the federative principle. There is nothing outlandish about the idea that large numbers of autonomous industrial units can federate and co-ordinate their activities. If you travel across Europe you go over the lines of a dozen railway systems - capitalist and communist - co-ordinated by freely arrived at agreement between the various undertakings, with no central authority. You can post a letter to anywhere in the world, but there is no world postal authority, - representatives of different postal authorities simply have a congress every five years or so. Colin Ward: Anarchism as a Theory of Organization (1966)
Anarchists see the need for international agreements,not State control of the internet, and Kropotkin gives us a good explanation of why.
As to parliamentary rule and representative government altogether, they are rapidly falling into decay. The few philosophers who already have shown their defects have only timidly summed up the growing public discontent. It is becoming evident that it is merely stupid to elect a few men and to entrust them with the task of making laws on all possible subjects, of which subjects most of them are utterly ignorant. It is becoming understood that majority rule is as defective as any other kind of rule; and humanity searches and finds new channels for resolving the pending questions. The Postal Union did not elect an international postal parliament in order to make laws for all postal organisations adherent to the Union. The railways of Europe did not elect an international railway parliament in order to regulate the running of the trains and the partition of the income of international traffic. And the Meteorological and Geological Societies of Europe did not elect either meteorological or geological parliaments to plan polar stations, or to establish a uniform subdivision of geological formations and a uniform coloration of geological maps. They proceeded by means of agreement. To agree together they resorted to congresses; but, while sending delegates to their congresses they did not say to them, “Vote about everything you like - we shall obey.” They put forward questions and discussed them first themselves; then they sent delegates acquainted with the special question to be discussed at the congress, and they sent delegates - not rulers. Their delegates returned from the congress with no laws in their pockets, but with proposals of agreements. Such is the way assumed now (the very old way, too) for dealing with questions of public interest - not the way of law making by means of a representative government.
Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles - Peter Kropotkin
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Internet, China, America, WWW, ICANN, networks,
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