Tunisia’s People Power: A Combination Of Creative Destruction And The Politics of Obedience

The New York Times reports,

The fall of Mr. Ben Ali marked the first time that widespread street demonstrations had overthrown an Arab leader. And even before the last clouds of tear gas had drifted away from the capital’s cafe-lined Bourguiba Boulevard, people throughout the Arab world had begun debating whether Tunisia’s uprising could prove to be a model, threatening other autocratic rulers in the region….

Because the protests came together largely through informal online networks, their success has also raised questions about whether a new opposition movement has formed that could challenge whatever new government takes shape. (emphasis mine)

This represents another validation of our prediction when I wrote,

The growing friction between technology and the old political society is definitely taking shape; eventually one has to give. My bet: creative destruction will win.

Aside from the first People Power at an Arab nation where the changes in the political order appear to be significantly influenced by the rapidly diffusing adaption to connectivity based technology platforms, the Tunisian experience suggests that People Power as a political concept as presciently advanced by the founder of modern political philosophy in France, Etienne de la Boetie, will become more accepted from the grassroots levels or become more widespread globally as more people will learn about their inherent power over governments.

To quote Etienne de la Boetie in the Politics of Obedience

Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it.

In short, people power and the web would make a mighty combination over the tyranny of governments.

So governments will try to fight these via the introduction of regulations and control of the web which would limit the democratization of information.

As one of the five things we should worry about in 2011 Cato’s Dan Mitchell rightly observers, (bold emphasis mine)

The Federal Communications Commission just engaged in an unprecedented power grab as part of its “Net Neutrality” initiative, so we already have bad news for both Internet consumers and America’s telecommunications industry. But it may get worse. The bureaucrats at the United Nations, conspiring with autocratic governments, have created an Internet Governance Forum in hopes of grabbing power over the online world. This has caused considerable angst, leading Vint Cerf, one of inventors of the Internet (sorry, Al Gore) to warn: “We don’t believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance. The current bottoms-up, open approach works — protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let’s fight to keep it that way.” International bureaucracies are very skilled at incrementally increasing their authority, so this won’t be a one-year fight. Stopping this power grab will require persistent oversight and a willingness to reject compromises that inevitably give bureaucracies more power and simply set the stage for further demands.