Friday 1 June 2007

Who Rules? Companies or Governments?

The big news in the politics world right now is the failure of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezula, to renew the broadcast licence of the television station RCTV whose broadcasts were questioning Chavez's rule. Although there has been much debate on the topic it is still pretty clear that it is censorship of the media. However, the station has turned to YouTube to publish its views and has, so far, received over 175,000 views and is the most subscribed channel of the week.

The power of capitalism and the company is being clearly displayed. The government wants to censor RCTV but it is failing to do so. The combined power of communications technology that is making information widely available and the incentive of companies to broadcast their message has transcended the power of the government.

From my point of view it's a wonderful day: it demonstrates the supreme power of capitalism and shows how the company can dominate over governments. This is wonderful in one sense: it means that governments such as Chavez's can't enact laws that restrict freedom of speech and, theoretically, other liberties. Unfortunately, there are also downsides: if the company is more powerful than the government then we have a power ruling over us that we have not permitted to do so. The advantage of a company is that it has to be providing some benefit because it is earning money but that doesn't mean it is providing benefit to me, a company is an amoral being and so it will benefit whoever has money, with no regard as to the benefit of those without money. It is like the simple utilitarian state in that it will attempt to bring the greatest benefit to the greatest number with no regard for the minority or basic human rights.

Fortunately the powers that companies have to overrule governments at this point are limited to actions that are legal in one country but not in the one they are carried out in. To explain: what I mean is that no company is empowered by technology to do something that is illegal in all countries, they have to have a physical host somewhere and, in that country, they will be held accountable to the law. For example Pirate Bay does things that are illegal in the UK but are totally legal in Sweden, and so they can carry on their business, so long as they remain hosted in Sweden but they could not carry out fraud on their website because that is illegal in Sweden.

This, however, is not a solution to the problem, companies can still do things to me against which I cannot be protected by the laws of my country. Hence there is a power over me that I have no permitted.

Overall it's turning out great right now but empowering companies in this way could certainly have some unpleasant consequences and, from a political theory standpoint, the public is certainly in a weaker position.

Disagree? Let me know.
Melugo

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

if the company is more powerful than the government then we have a power ruling over us that we have not permitted to do so

The company is complying with the government. RCTV was, I think, the only single Venezuelan broadcaster that is completly nationwide. RCTV lost their broadcast license due to saying things Chavez did not like. They can still appear on cable TV but with a much, much smaller audience while Chavez siezes their broadcast equipment and gets a nationwide Channel Chavez.

We'll see if the Chavez government decides to go further against the remnants of RCTV or Globovision.

I also take issue with your calling companies "more powerful" due to a government's lack of ability. I wouldn't call Boeing or Airbus more powerful simply because governments cannot repeal the law of gravity.

Anonymous said...

I take issue with calling what Chavez did censorship. He is simply not allowing them access to the public's airwaves.

Most democratic type countries allow the government to dole out the nation's resources to companies claim to act in the public interest.

It could easily be argued that RCTV was not acting in the public interest when it participated in a coup on the democratically elected president.

In the United States we have plenty of television stations that aren't given access to freely available, over the air transmissions and no one claims that these stations are being censored.

Also in the United States when a broadcaster does something the government doesn't like, they end up being fined by the FCC (the regulatory arm that oversees the public airwaves for both television and radio).

I find it offensive that RCTV is claiming to be a victim in this scenario. Their argument sounds to me that they're a company who've made millions off of being able to broadcast on the public airwaves and they believe that they should always be allowed to do so regardless of the activities they involve themselves in.

This is a good lesson in life. There are consequences for your actions.

Anonymous said...

He is simply not allowing them access to the public's airwaves

and yet the stated reason is because of what RCTV has said. How dare they encourage people to protest or be critical of the government! How dare they report that General Rincon said Chavez resigned. (Rincon who is still part of the Chavez government) If supporting a coup is so damning then why wait 5 years before shutting them down?

This is a good lesson in life. There are consequences for your actions

Like if Hugo Chavez participate in a coup against the democratically elected government then he shouldn't be too surprised when someone participates in a coup against his democratically elected government . People probably thought "Hell, even if my coup fails I may get elected president"

Melugo said...

You're right, I didn't quite mean that the companies were more powerful than the governments, but that they could do things over which the governments had no control, in one particular area they have more power than the government.

Я | 8-|~/.juan/.* said...

I think you should read a little bit more about RCTV before saying that Chavez is attacking freedom of speech in Venezuela...

I would be pleased to show you the "other side" of the story.

Melugo said...

It's true I know very little about RCTV and the situation in Venezuela, I was mainly trying to illustrate the idea of companies having power that governments can't control. Thanks for the input, I'm interested now, I'll go read the whole story :)
Melugo