If power tends to corrupt, what are the implications? One response is to try to impose controls on powerholders: codes of ethics, agreements, laws. For example, having nuclear weapons gives governments a lot of power. So international agreements are made to control these weapons, such as hot lines to communicate in a crisis, treaties on numbers of weapons and promises to not launch a first strike. But this doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. As long as nuclear weapons exist, a great amount of power rests in the hands of those few individuals who control them. This is corrupting and the danger of nuclear war persists.
The alternative is to abolish nuclear weapons so that inequalities inherent in the power of nuclear weaponry do not exist. More generally, the corruptions of power can be minimised by equalising power and opposing social and technological systems that foster power inequalities. This works out the same as opposing systems of domination, inequality and exploitation. In this picture, a free society is a society with the least power differences. This does not mean a stable society of identical citizens. Instead, it could easily be a society seething with action and conflict, precisely because everyone has opportunities to exercise significant power. The point is that there would be no social structures or technologies — such as bureaucracies and nuclear weapons — that give some individuals a great deal of power over others.
The idea of a free society should be seen as a method, not an end point. The idea that “power tends to corrupt” is a guide to action. Policies, technologies and organisational arrangements can be judged to see whether they contribute to equality or inequality of power.
This can easily be applied to information. Information is a part of all systems of power. Top bureaucrats try to control information as part of their control over subordinates and clients. Corporations try to control information through trade secrets and patents. Militaries try to control information using the rationale of “national security.” So-called freedom of information — namely, public access to documents produced in bureaucracies — is a threat to top bureaucrats.
In a society where not everyone can read and write, literacy is a form of power and campaigns for mass literacy are a threat to ruling elites. In a society where employees cannot speak freely due to fears about job security, bosses hold power and campaigns for workers’ control are a threat to top managers. In a society where a few owners and editors control systems of mass communication, campaigns for multiple independent avenues for publication are a threat to elites.
This book applies Acton’s insight about the corruptions of power to various areas dealing with information and communication. I don’t cover every topic but try to illustrate some ways to proceed.
The mass media are inherently undemocratic because a small number of individuals control what is communicated to a large audience (chapter 2).
Patents and copyrights give control over use of information to corporations and individuals. This power is commonly used to benefit the rich and exploit the poor (chapter 3).
Surveillance, which boils down to gathering information about someone else without their knowledge or consent, is a method for social control (chapter 4).
Employees do not have free speech (chapter 5).
Defamation law is regularly used to suppress free speech (chapter 6).
The structure of research organisations, including universities, makes knowledge mainly useful to governments, corporations, professions and researchers themselves (chapter 7).
Ideas that will be useful for popular understanding and action need to be simple in essence — though not just any simple idea will serve the purpose (chapter 8).
People need to learn to think for themselves rather than accept the ideas of famous intellectuals (chapter 9).
Information plays a role in nearly every field of human activity, from art to industry, and all of these are subject to the corruptions of power. Challenging information-related systems of power is one avenue for social change. But it’s only one of many possible avenues. Bringing about a just society involves more than achieving a goal involving knowledge and communication, such as equal access to information. Also needed are changes in personal relations, economics, military systems and many other areas. Challenging the corruptions of information power is just one way to proceed — but it is an important and fascinating one.
Some rough definitions
Information is data that has been processed, organised or classified into categories.
Knowledge is facts and principles believed to be true.
Wisdom is good judgement of what is useful for achieving something worthwhile.
Information without knowledge isn’t much use, and knowledge without wisdom isn’t much use. More information isn’t necessarily a good thing without the capacity to interpret, understand and use it. Nevertheless, the focus here is on power to control information, which has consequences for developing knowledge and wisdom.
2. Beyond mass media
Mass media are inherently corrupting. A small number of owners and editors exercise great power over what is communicated to large numbers of people. Mass media should be replaced by participatory media organised as networks, such as telephone and computer networks. Strategies to supersede mass media include changing one’s own media consumption patterns, participating in alternative media and using nonviolent action against the mass media.
Complaints about the mass media are commonplace. To begin, there is the low quality of many of the programmes and articles. There is the regular portrayal of violence, given an attention out of proportion with its frequency in everyday life. More generally, most of the mass media give much more attention to crime, deaths, disasters, wars and strife than to harmonious communities, acts of kindness and win-win conflict resolution. The mass media frequently create unrealistic fears about criminals, foreign peoples and mass protest.
“News” often is more like entertainment than information or education. News reports, especially on television, are typically given without much overt context. The latest events are described, but there is no explanation of what led up to them or caused them. Consumers of the media consequently hear a lot of facts but frequently don’t understand how they fit together. “Context” is the result of the assumptions behind the facts, and this context is all the more powerful because it is neither stated nor discussed.
