openDemocracy

The one element clear right through representative democracy’s advance across the world has been the centrality of popular rejection of autocratic effrontery, often exhilarating at the time but in retrospect a transitory pleasure. The structure of modern representative democracy (the form of state now called by that name) does not provide a clear model for any community to rule itself in freedom, let alone in reliable serenity and prosperity. What it provides is a practical basis through which to refuse to be ruled unaccountably and indefinitely against your will. Less steadily and on far less egalitarian terms, it also provides a framework through which to explore together what people should and should not attempt to do as a community. Virtually none of the elements of an answer to that question can come from democracy as an idea. Almost all have to be pieced together arduously from somewhere else.

Crudely speaking, the political appeal of democracy lies in its claim to realise political equality. (So, soberly speaking, does its potential political menace.)

The extent of that divide is startling and remains largely unrecognised, as does the fact that it has increased markedly in recent decades. The period from 1965 to 1990 was particularly acute - in 1960 the average GNP per capita for the richest 20% of the world's population was thirty times that of the poorest 20%. By 1995 this had widened to sixty times.

n the way that Heritage Park is a defence against disorder and crime, with its enlightened schooling rooted in the Christian ethos of love and care and helpfully protected by 33,000 volts, so Baladia represents a more aggressive response of taking the war to the enemy. Create your enemy's town, and train your troops to attack with much greater effect.

And let me say that commitment to international action on justice means today to prevent genocide, the world must through the U.N, urgently act in Darfur.

Most of all my parents taught me that each of us should live by a moral compass.It was a simple faith with a fundamental optimism.That each and every one of us has a talent.Each of us a duty to use that talent.And each of us should have the chance to develop that talent. And my parents thought we should use whatever talent we had to help people least able to help themselves. And as I grew up surrounded by books, sports, music and encouragement, I saw at school and beyond how some flourished and others, denied these opportunities, fell behind. They had talent, they had ability. But they did not have the chance to fulfil their promise. They needed someone to champion them. They needed the support of people on their side. And is not our history the story of yes, progress through the fulfilled talents, even genius, of some but, yes, also of the wasted potential of millions for too many, their talents lost and forever unfulfilled?

Strip away the rhetoric about globalisation and it comes down to one essential truth: You can buy raw materials from anywhere,You can borrow capital form anywhere,You can engage with technology half way across the world,But you cannot buy from elsewhere what in the global economy you need most; the skills and the creativity of all our people – and that means that in education we must aim to be number one.

New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media. In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.

But here is also the opportunity. At present, we are all being dragged down by the way media and public life interact. Trust in journalists is not much above that in politicians. There is a market in providing serious, balanced news. There is a desire for impartiality. The way that people get their news may be changing; but the thirst for the news being real news is not.

It is sometimes said that the media is accountable daily through the choice of readers and viewers. That is true up to a point. But the reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself. So it is true politicians are accountable through the ballot box every few years. But they are also profoundly accountable, daily, through the media, which is why a free press is so important.

Fun Latin This page is dedicated to Judith L. Scott. Requiescat in pace Some phrases from Latin for all Occasions, by Henry Beard.

The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?

Those most likely to have stopped using a news source because of a breach of trust (the 13% strongly agreeing they have done so in the past year) are more likely to be urban males, aged 18-24. Further analysis of the findings suggests this young male audience is moving away from television towards the Internet – ten percent fewer of them, compared to the average, name television as their most important news source (46% as opposed to 56% overall); and 15 percent say the Internet is now their most important news source in an average week, compared to just 9 percent of respondents as a whole.

Economists distinguish between “Risk” and “Uncertainty”: the former can be priced by financial markets while the latter cannot. The distinction between the two was made by the famous economist Frank H. Knight in his seminal book, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (1921). In brief, “Risk is present when future events occur with measurable probability” while “Uncertainty is present when the likelihood of future events is indefinite or incalculable”.    This distinction between risk and uncertainty helps to explain the recent market panic and turmoil. Today, the FT cites a market economist at Lehman who said: “We are in a minefield. No one knows where the mines are planted and we are just trying to stumble through it”. A few days ago another market participant put it this way: “It is not the corpses at the surface that are scary; it is the unknown corpses below the surface that may pop up unexpectedly”.   Unknown minefield; unexpected corpses: this is “uncertainty” rather than “risk”. Risk can be measured and priced because it depends on know distributions of events to which investors can assign probabilities. Uncertainty cannot be priced by markets because it relates to “fat tail” distributions and extreme events that cannot be easily predicted or measured.

A few days ago the CFO of Goldman Sachs justified the massive – 30% plus  - losses of the two Goldman Sachs hedge funds by arguing that these were unpredictable “25 standard deviation events” that should occur only once in a million years. The same thing was said by the LTCM “masters of the universe” when their highly leveraged hedge fund went belly up in 1998.

The proliferation of such products, as I have often noted before, carries many benefits for the financial system (most notably that they disperse risk across a much wider pool of investors). But this trend also carries at least one downside; it is adding to the opacity of the financial world. For although many corners of the structured credit universe are becoming more transparent, almost as soon as one chink of light emerges, another shadowy wave of activity emerges that is far more opaque.

"I am too high-born to be propertied, To be a secondary at control, Or useful serving-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world." [William Shakespeare King John]

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

Each blogger is capable of bias and slander, but, taken as a group, bloggers offer the searcher after truth boundless material to chew over. Of course, the internet panders to closed minds; but so has much of the press.

People who read the newspaper online have a far less favorable opinion of network and local TV news programming than do people who read the print version, and also have a somewhat less favorable view of the daily newspaper they are most familiar with. But consumers of online newspapers feel far more favorably toward large nationally influential newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

And by more than three-to-one (73%-21%), the public feels that news organizations are "often influenced by powerful people and organizations," rather than "pretty independent."

However, even two-thirds of liberal Democrats (67%) say the news media is more motivated by a desire to expand audience than informing the public. People who have attended college are more likely than high school graduates to say that the press mostly seeks to attract the biggest audience. And 85% of those who cite the internet as a main source believe that news organizations are mostly motivated by a desire to expand their audience, rather than to inform the public.

Nor did they anticipate that this quiet man would be able to boost his maverick image by skilfully playing on the public's distrust of the media

As Ségolène Royal says: in her "participative democracy" all citizens are experts.

Yet, one day, reality will take its revenge on reality shows.

The core budget for 2008 is expected to be $481.4 billion, compared with $441.5 billion for 2006; but the "supplemental" requests to cope with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan push the figures even higher - from a total budget of $557.3 billion in 2007 to $645.6 billion in 2008.

injured in combat now exceed 23,000 (at least 10,000 of them seriously so). The effects of non-combat injuries, and of mental and physical ill-health, have required at least 20,000 troops to be evacuated from combat-zones to the United States. Many thousands more come to experience post-traumatic stress disorders.

Subvertandprofit.com “operates a black market for votes on social networking sites,” in the words of its 19-year-old founder, who goes by the pseudonym Ragnar Danneskjold. Ragnar told AZ contributor Derek Powazek that while some users of Digg.com “cling to democracy as the final ideal,” others “understand that their community is a wild anarchy...and I believe they like it that way.”

Beans, Blogs, and Feeds Four basic conditions? That's all you got, Surowiecki? Your conditions have just met their match: bloggers are a wise crowd. Diversity of opinion - That's a no-brainer. Bloggers publish hundreds of thousands of posts daily, each one charged with its author's unique opinion. Independence of members - Except for your friends saying "You've got to blog about that!" bloggers are not controlled by anyone else. Decentralization - There is no central authority in the blogosphere; publish your blog anywhere you want with any tool you want. A method for aggregating opinions - Blog feeds make aggregation a snap and there is no shortage of services that take advantage of that fact.

Does the lone bird see the cohesive beauty of the flock? It doesn't matter because this fact remains: the whole is greater than the sum of all it's parts. As a blogger, you are both an individual force and a neuron in the giant, interconnected mind that is the blogosphere. Yes, it sounds like a bad sci-fi movie, but it's all true.

We are the crowdsourcing black market. We pay social media website users for their votes, and sell them to advertisers who want to boost their exposure on these sites.

He'd phoned twice the week before, and I'd returned the call to his hotel voice mail on both occasions, but we hadn't connected. So when the 350-pound biker widely known across the deep south as "Grizzly" called me again last Thursday, I was as prepared as could be for another of his semi-annual communications.

Nick Pearce objects to my joining those who deny the possibility of state neutrality in relation to culture and identity. He says that I thereby regrettably place myself outside the liberal egalitarian tradition, but then adds that "in reality few believe that the state can or should embody one version of the good life". So, it is unclear to me what the objection about neutrality is.

Some critics of multiculturalism worry about "where it will all end", and so deny that multiculturalism is compatible with individual rights, with equality before the law, with civic belonging.

A hi-tech eco-friendly office on common land in the east of Europe. Together the office community is drawn together to discuss the recent problems and issues besetting the community. They have all worked during the day and the weather is cool and bright as it is nearing the end of the year. They sit around waiting for the start of the meeting.