Jamie Bartlett - The People Vs Tech : How the internet is killing democracy

Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World

The Dark Net

Orwell versus the Terrorists: Crypto-Wars and the Future of Surveillance

IN THE COMING FEW years either tech will destroy democracy and the social order as we know it, or politics will stamp its authority over the digital world. It is becoming increasingly clear that technology is currently winning this battle, crushing a diminished and enfeebled opponent. This book is about why this is happening, and how we can still turn it around.

By technology I do not mean all technology, of course. The word itself (like democracy) came from an amalgamation of two Greek words techne, meaning skill and logos meaning study and therefore encompasses practically everything in the modern world. I am not referring to the lathe, the power-loom, the motor car, the MRI scanner or the F16 fighter jet. I mean specifically the digital technologies associated with Silicon Valley social media platforms, big data, mobile technology and artificial intelligence that are increasingly dominating economic, political and social life.

Its clear that these technologies have, on balance, made us more informed, wealthier and, in some ways, happier. After all, technology tends to expand human capabilities, produce new opportunities, and increase productivity. But that doesnt necessarily mean that theyre good for democracy. In exchange for the undeniable benefits of technological progress and greater personal freedom, we have allowed too many other fundamental components of a functioning political system to be undermined: control, parliamentary sovereignty, economic equality, civic society and an informed citizenry. And the tech revolution has only just got going. As Ill show, the coming years will see further dramatic improvements in digital technology. On the current trajectory, within a generation or two the contradictions between democracy and technology will exhaust themselves.

Strangely for an idea that nearly everyone claims to value, no one can agree on precisely what democracy means. The political theorist Bernard Crick once said its true meaning is stored up somewhere in heaven. Broadly speaking, it is both a principle of how to govern ourselves, and a set of institutions which allow for sovereignty to be derived from the people. Exactly how this works changes from place to place and over time, but easily the most workable and popular version is modern liberal representative democracy. When I use the term democracy from now on, this is what Im referring to (and I am only looking at mature, Western democracies to look beyond that is a different subject entirely). This form of democracy typically means that representatives of the people are elected to make decisions on their behalf, and that there is a set of interlocking institutions making the whole thing work. This includes periodic elections, a healthy civil society, certain individual rights, well-organised political parties, an effective bureaucracy and a free and vigilant media. Even that is not enough democracies also need committed citizens who believe in the wider democratic ideals of distributed power, rights, compromise and informed debate. Every stable modern democracy shares nearly all of these features.

This is not another book-length whinge about rapacious capitalists who masquerade as cool tech guys, nor a morality tale about grasping multinationals. Democracy has seen off plenty of them over the years. While there are certainly contradictions in minimising tax while claiming to empower people, doing so doesnt necessarily betray insincerity. And, on first glance, technology is a boon to democracy. It certainly improves and extends the sphere of human freedom and offers access to new information and ideas. It gives previously unheard groups in society a platform and creates new ways to pool knowledge and coordinate action. These are aspects of a healthy democratic society too.

However, at a deep level, these two grand systems technology and democracy are locked in a bitter conflict. They are products of completely different eras and run according to different rules and principles. The machinery of democracy was built during a time of nation-states, hierarchies, deference and industrialised economies. The fundamental features of digital tech are at odds with this model: non-geographical, decentralised, data-driven, subject to network effects and exponential growth. Put simply: democracy wasnt designed for this. Thats not really anyones fault, not even Mark Zuckerbergs.

Im hardly alone in thinking this, by the way. Many early digital pioneers saw how what they called cyberspace was mismatched with the physical world, too. John Perry Barlows oft-quoted 1996 Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace sums up this tension rather well: Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world... Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here. This is an exhilarating statement of the freedom offered by the internet that still holds digital aficionados in thrall. But democracy is based on matter, in addition to the legal concepts of property, expression, identity and movement. If you scratch beneath Silicon Valleys corporate pieties about connectivity, networks and global communities, youll find that an anti-democratic impulse continues to exist.

In the following pages, I will argue that there are six key pillars that make democracy work, not just as an abstract idea, but also as a workable system of collective self-government that people believe in and support. These are:

ACTIVE CITIZENS: Alert, independent-minded citizens who are capable of making important moral judgements.