life. There are no states that get to say to their citizens: “You have no right to vote here; if you don’t like it, leave.” Our role in relation to our governments is that of a stakeholder with a voice. We have a right — if the government is to be called democratic — to participate in its structuring.
And this is true not just with governments. It would be an odd university that gave its faculty no right to vote on issues central to the university (though it is an odd corporation that gives its employees a right to vote on issues related to employment). It would be an odd social club that did not give members some control over its functions — though again, there are such clubs, just as there are nondemocratic governments. Even the church allows its members to determine a great deal of how members are governed. In these institutions, we are members, not consumers — or, not just consumers. These institutions give consumers control over the rules that will govern them. In this sense, these institutions are citizen-sovereignties.
As a descriptive matter, then, cyberspace is not yet dominated (or even broadly populated) by citizen- sovereignties. The sovereignties we see so far are all merchant-sovereignties. And this is even more clearly true with the Internet. To the extent sites are sovereign, they are merchant-sovereigns. Our relationship to them is the same as our relationship to McDonald’s.
Some theorists have tried to collapse these two different models into one. Some have tried to carry the member model into every sphere of social life — the workplace, the mall, the local pub.[9] Others have tried to carry the consumer model into every sphere of social life — followers of Charles Tiebout, for example, have tried to explain competition among governments along the lines of the choices we make among toothpastes.[10] But even if we cannot articulate perfectly the justifications for treating these choices differently, it would be a mistake to collapse these different spheres into one. It would be hell to have to vote on the design of toothpaste, and tyranny if our only recourse against a government we didn’t like was to move to a different land.
But then is it a problem that cyberspace is comprised of just merchant-sovereignties? The first defense for merchant-sovereignties is developed in the writings of David Post and his sometime coauthor David Johnson.[11] Post’s article “Anarchy, State, and the Internet” best sets the stage. Communities in cyberspace, Post argues, are governed by “rule-sets.” We can understand these rule-sets to be the requirements, whether embedded in the architecture or promulgated in a set of rules, that constrain behavior in a particular place. The world of cyberspace, he argues, is comprised by these rule-sets. Individuals will choose to enter one rule-set or another. As rule-sets compete for our attention, the world of cyberspace will come to be defined by this competition of merchant-sovereigns for customers.
Post’s account again is descriptively accurate. It is also, Post argues, normatively recommended. Sovereigns should be understand as a firm’s market power is understood in antitrust law. By “market power” antitrust lawyers and economists mean a firm’s ability to raise prices profitably. In a perfectly competitive market, a firm with no market power is the one that cannot raise its prices because it would lose so much in sales as to make the increase not worth it.[12] The firm that does have market power can raise prices and see its profits increase. The firm with market power also has the ability to force consumers to accept a price for a good that is higher than the price in a competitive market.
We might imagine an analogous constraint operating on government. Sovereigns, like firms, can get away with only so much. As they become more repressive, or as they regulate more harshly, other sovereigns, or other rule-sets, become competitors. At some point it is easier for citizens to leave than to put up with the burdens of regulation[13], or easier to evade the law than to comply with it.
Because such moves are costly in real space, sovereigns, at least in the short run, can get away with a lot. But in cyberspace, moving is not so hard. If you do not like the rule-set of your MMOGs, you can change games. If you do not like the amount of advertising on one Internet portal, then in two seconds you can change your default portal. Life in cyberspace is about joining without ever leaving your home. If the group you join does not treat you as you want to be treated, you can leave. Because competitive pressure is greater in cyberspace, governments and other propagators of rule-sets must behave like firms in a competitive market.
This is an important and interesting conception of governance. Important because it describes governance in cyberspace; interesting because it perhaps shows the purpose and limits of citizen-sovereignty in real space. It argues for a world of volunteers, one where rules are not imposed but selected. It is a world that minimizes the unconcented-to-power of any particular government, by making governments competitors for citizens. It is government like McDonald’s or Coca-Cola — eager to please, fearful of revolt.
There are reasons, however, to be skeptical about this view. First, consider the claim that exit costs are lower in cyberspace than in real space. When you switch to a different ISP or Internet portal, you no doubt confront a different set of “rules”, and these rules no doubt compete for your attention. This is just like going from one restaurant or shopping mall to another. There are competing rule-sets; they are among several factors you consider in choosing an ISP; and to the extent that there is easy movement among these rule-sets, this movement is undoubtedly a competition among them. Some ISPs, of course, try to make this movement difficult. If you’ve been a member of AOL for ten years, and you decide you want to switch, AOL doesn’t make that change easy by providing, for example, a simple ability to forward your e-mail. But as people recognize this restriction imposed by AOL, they’ll choose other ISPs. If the competition is real, the rule-set will compete.
Communities, however, are different. Consider the “competition” among, say, MMOGs. You join an MMOG and spend months building a character in that community. You also collect assets — buildings you’ve built, or weapons you’ve acquired. Both resources are a kind of capital. The set of relationships you’ve developed are the social capital; all the stuff you have is the physical capital.
If you then become dissatisfied with life in your chosen MMOGs, you can leave. But leaving is costly. You can’t transfer the social capital you’ve built, and, depending upon the game, you may not be able to transfer the physical capital either. Like choosing to join a different frequent flyer program, the choice to join a different MMOG is a decision to waste certain assets. And that fact will weaken the competition among these rule-sets.
I don’t mean to overstate the point. Indeed, as markets have developed for selling assets within MMOGs, and the nature of the games has become standardized, some argue that it is becoming much easier to move from one game to another. In real space you also can’t easily transfer social capital from one community to another. Friends are not fungible, even if they can give you connections at your new home. But physical assets in real space are transferable. I can sell what I don’t want and move what I do. Always. In MMOGs, not always.
Paradoxically, then, we might say that it may be harder to change communities in cyberspace than it is in real space. It is harder because you must give up everything in a move from one cyber-community to another, whereas in real space you can bring much of it with you.[14] Communities in cyberspace may in the short run have more power over their citizens (regarding social capital) than real-space communities do.
This means that the picture of competing rule-sets in cyberspace is more complex than Post suggests. The pressure on competition is potentially greater in turn. That might motivate a desire in cyberspace communities to shift toward citizen-sovereignty, but, again, there’s not much evidence of that shift yet.
There is a second, more fundamental skepticism. Even if we could construct cyberspace on the model of
