Tuesday 19 October 2010

Some Tentative Principles of Government & Industry

Government and private industry should be separated as far as possible to ensure the preservation of a harmony of checks and balances, and to discourage the inevitable formation of a political-financial elite who threaten, as industry continues to commodify anything which could potentially fetch a price in the market, to eventually dominate all aspects of social and extra-social discourse.

Private companies who control areas of social discourse have a hand in something potentially useful to government (social networking sites functioning as a rough and ready global surveillance technology, the mass media monopoly of information, military technology, etc.) and so the incentive to form a relationship is discovered. Private industry, on the other hand, is restricted by economic, social, and foreign policy – the complementary principle of a political-financial elite lies here.

The terms of co-operation are more straightforward than those which hold in any other inter-social relationship (such as those which hold between NGO’s and the media). This is because private industry controls a large region of social discourse, and the government controls the rules which underlie it. If it is found to be in mutual accord that an action be taken which violates the rules of social discourse, private industry anticipates no retribution for their breach of social contract as they are working in reciprocity with the primary legislative body who as a result find themselves protected (to varying degrees) against any incursions from private industry.