Re: <nettime> When the Party becomes a Platform

[carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 03:13:38PM +0000, Paolo Gerbaudo wrote:
> What is remarkable about these formations, is the way
> they seem to adapt to the political sphere the data-driven business model
> of Facebook, Amazon and Google.

In an utterly naive way from what I see.. even leaders
of the new left surrender to the totalitarian grasp that
Silicon Valley has on digital workfare, completely
forgetting how life was before Google and how each of
those surveillance tools still has non-surveillance
alternatives that political movements should use in
order to not make themselves completely prone to
manipulation. This article by Yanis Varoufakis proposes
a completely unrealistic solution to the Silicon Valley
problem while accepting centralized mass control as an
inevitability.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/social-ownership-of-google-big-tech-by-yanis-varoufakis-2018-10

> These parties have not only used social media to attain momentous growth.
> They have also created their own dedicated platforms, decision-making
> platforms, such as Rousseau in the Five Star Movement or Consul in the case
> of Podemos, which have come to constitute a key organisational
> infrastructure for these formations. These platforms are for these parties
> the intermediate element, what Antonio Gramsci called the third element,
> the articulating element between leadership and membership. They are the
> place where the party's collective action is legitimised and coordinated,
> and therefore play a key role in the functioning of these formations.

And interestingly no constitutional court has intervened yet, considering
how most of these platforms do not provide any form of verification of
vote, allowing the webmaster to wield ultimate decision-making power.
Most European countries have laws requiring political parties to
entertain credible inner democracy, yet these "movements" are allowed
to breach this principle, hidden behind the disguise of progress.
Only Liquid Feedback used in the Pirate movement happens to be a
transparent and verifiable tool. There once was much criticism around
the concept of liquid democracy, but the critics never expected that
by consequence technologies would arise that aren't just imperfect -
they are outright anti-democratic.

> This entails a radical lowering of the barrier to
> membership, also because no fees have to be paid, thus delinking membership
> from donorship.

A strategy not endorsed by all of these movements, as not everyone likes
to be susceptible to sock puppets and troll armies.

> This turn has allowed these parties to grow at break-neck speed: Podemos
> now stands at half million members 4 years since its foundation, and
> similar numbers has France Insoumise. But much of this membership has
> turned out to be a rather dormant membership, which participates only
> occasionally in consultations on participatory platforms, where the turnout
> rate in referenda and other votes is often around just 20%. The risk thus

20% is a pretty high number, even for traditional parties.
It is normal that the majority of sustainers doesn't want to be
bothered by details and simply supports a certain approach to
politics.

> is that by becoming a platform political parties internalise some of the
> typical ills of social media platforms: the quest for instant
> gratification; the obsession with metrics immediately taken as public
> opinion 'votes' on whatever issue; a very skewed power distribution in
> which very people lead, and the mass of users can do little but follow,
> like, or share.

With the popular tenor against political parties, these people do
not know what guarantees of inner democracy they are supposed to
expect. Yet, in each of these movements there have been terrific
battles for improved inner democracy going on for years. Activists
being told to be patient, that everything will work out fine.
Years have passed and the movements have consolidated because all
the people having a reasonable expectation of true participation
have stepped away.

I saw it in M5S, I heard of it from Podemos, I'm seeing it right
now in DiEM25.

> Furthermore, this transformation also carries important and problematic
> implications for power structures within political parties. The adoption of
> participatory platforms is often assumed by party advocates to translate
> into democratisation, turning the membership into an highly empowered and
> active "superbase". Yet, this superbase goes hand in hand with an
> Hyperleader, with new forms of charismatic and highly centralised
> leadership that are visible in the prominence within these parties of
> figures such as Pablo Iglesias, Beppe Grillo, Jean-Luc Melenchon etc.
> Platformisation entails a demolition of the old party bureaucracy, that
> Robert Michels considered the principal redoubt of the oligarchy he so much
> decried. But what if we are abandoning the Scylla of the infamous "iron law
> of oligarchy", only to crash against the Carybdis of a "benevolent
> dictatorship"?

Exactly. Statutory documents imply and reflect a trusty belief in
technology that, whatever the voting platform, it will diligently
serve the purpose. The documents however do not specify who has the
privilege of formulating the questions up for referendum, and who
runs the servers. The new M5S statutes simply define some guarantors
who have the legal responsibility that the voting procedure is correct,
although it is technically completely impossible for them to check.
They are handing out a signed blank check to the webmasters.

> These are some of the questions and issues activists around the world
> should engage with as they discuss new organisational forms, and the
> lessons that should be taken from the new digital parties. These parties
> undoubtedly offer great potential for scaling up organisational structures
> and for creating collective actors capable of fighting against the old
> behemots. But the political and ethical issues this new organisational
> template raises should not be underestimated.


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