Cyberspace as the fifth nomos.

Inequality and surveillance as the biggest threats to the political agents of the twenty-first century.
by Mercedes Oviedo Montaa
m.ovmont@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper presents the cyberspace as a new center of conflict, where there are powerful interests trying to
block sensitive content about our government, a particular person and different corporations; there are
actions against the consolidation of Net-Neutrality and every bit of our personal information is analysed with
algorithms and it will keep being analysed until we demand our right to privacy. After the terrorist attacks of
September 2001, the intelligence agencies of the USA began to enforce surveillance policies to prevent new
attacks, regardless of the presumption of innocence.

Internet users are growing day after day, but the most challenging aspects of this new era are to promote
public education in order to encourage critical thinking, and finding new ways of production -such as the
Buen Vivir philosophy-, which promote a community centered, economically balanced and culturally
sensitive way of living.

Last but not least, poverty and inequality are the main causes of exclusion in our current political system; If
there is any intention to improve the democratic system through open-source platforms, and not merely
concoct some smokescreen, we need to solve this problem first.

Social system

Anthony Giddens provides a solid theoretical framework useful to analyze relationships of power and the way
social changes take place. In it, social systems are regarded as relations of interdependence that develop in
the situated activities of human subjects and exist in the flow of time. Structures, constructed through
organised rules and resources, are properties of social systems. Social systems only exist in and through
structuration, as the outcome of the contingent acts of a multiplicity of human beings.

The british sociologist said, In the theory of structuration, neither subject -human agent- nor object -society
or social institutions- should be regarded as having primacy. Each is constituted in and through recurrent
practices (1982). Whenever we speak of a human action we also imply the possibility that the agent could
have acted otherwise. The sense of this well-worn phrase is not easy to elucidate philosophically. It is a
basic mistake to equate the knowledgeability of agents with what is known consciously, (that is, what can
be held in mind in a conscious way). An explication of subjectivity must relate consciousness in this sense
(discursive consciousness) to what Giddens called practical consciousness and the unconscious.

In the relations of autonomy and dependence that constitute social systems Giddens speaks of <<dialectic of
control>>, by which he means the capability of the weak (those outside the institutional frame), to turn their
weakness back against the powerful. Just as action is intrinsically related to power, so is the dialectic of
control built into the very nature of social systems. An agent who does not participate in the dialectic of
control is no longer an agent. All relations of autonomy and dependence are reciprocal: however wide are
the asymmetrical distribution of resources involved, all power relations express autonomy and dependence
in both directions.

Political system

According to Guillermo ODonnell (1992), the concept of State could be analyze in three aspects: 1) as a
territorial entity that identifies those who could fulfil the requirement to be a citizen; 2) as a legal system that
assigns and defends the rights and guarantees of those citizens; 3) as a set of bureaucracies that execute
those rights and guarantees. But there is another aspect that must be taken into account. Antonio Gramsci
described Rather than only a government apparatus, the State must be understood as a private apparatus
of hegemony []. The State is an ideological instrument to adequate the civil society to the economic
structure. (Gramsci; The Prison Notebooks). Like Gramsci said, the consolidation of hegemony is not solely
achieved by government; culture, religion, education and the media are all aspects of the civil society that
help build the legitimacy of this system.

In representative democracies there are many things that are not open to public knowledge, especially when

independent citizens -or journalists- want to know the real numbers that are in the eye of the storm. The
access to government information is essential for the development of the political agents, because its one of
the most fundamental tools to control the government -vertical accountability-. Accountability to those
institutions, or to other private or semi-private organizations, appears as an unnecessary impediment to the
full authority that the President has been delegated to exercise.(ODonnell, 1992). According to the
argentinean politologist, there is a difference between delegatives and representatives democracies, but the
global financial crisis are hitting every economy in the world and parliamentary systems are not always
prepared to solve the economic crisis quickly. This global fact is making the representative system weaker,
because when we decided who are we going to vote, we are not thinking any longer in ideas or fixed political
structures, we need to trust in the Executive Power. Delegative democracies are grounded on one basic
premise: who wins a presidential election is enabled to govern the country as he sees fit, and to the extent
that existing power relations allow, for the term to which he has been elected. .After the election,
voters/delegators are expected to return to the condition of passive, but hopefully cheering, spectators of
what the President does. (ODonnell; 1992)

But an open government is not enough to fulfill the principle of inclusion, because an open government does
not mean that information is clear to the people. Information and education must walk hand in hand in order
to improve the dialectic of control. Formal education should be truly free for everyone. Critical thinking,
learning how to study and civic education should be as important as maths. Childrens natural curiosity
should be encouraged and valued. Furthermore, education should not force children into a certain mould of
what it means to be academically successful. In a world that is increasingly connected, learning how to code
makes the tools of inclusion and involvement easy to be improved by anyone and also hold governments to
real accountability.

Another very important aspect about our system is that national and transnational companies have a big
influence when it comes to raising money for political campaigns. Also, when voting, some representatives
make their decisions under the influence -lobby- of these companies instead of committing to their own ideas
or those of the ideological corpus of their political party. This economic power is allowed to influence our
representatives on a daily basis, while citizens -the first victims- have to wait four or more years at a time for

a vote. Despite the sovereignty of each State, many strategical national decisions are coerced by big
companies, by other countries and by international organizations.

The measures proposed in the 1990s by the International Organizations -IMF, WB and WTO- were allegedly
designed to secure the cooperation and solidarity between States, but the real interest behind them was the
consolidation of an international hegemony. When we discuss hegemony we are really talking about three
aspects: ideas, institutions and the ownership of the means of production. International hegemony does not
mean Imperialism; first because this hegemony is legitimated by the economical systemthus

there are no
military forces involved-; second, because it is also legitimated by mostly every country in the world.

But the State is not an homogeneous institution: there are groups willing to change the system into a more
progressive, inclusive and open one. However, and despite their activism, when these groups want to
develop into a political party they find several legal and budget limitations. Economic powers can and often
do obstruct policy-makers willing to change the economic models of underdeveloped countries. The
predominance of bureaucratic centralism in the State indicates that the ruling group is saturated and
becoming a close coterie that tends to perpetuate their privileges or even suffocating the development of
opposing forces[]. In political parties that belongs to socially subordinate groups, the element of stability
is necessary to ensure the hegemony of privileged groups but not the progressive elements[]. (Gramsci;
The Prison Notebooks)

The international division of labor has been modeling the way we think about economic growth and
development since the Industrial Revolution. Current alternatives to capitalism are changing both Latin
America and the traditional Western conception of development.. The Constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador,
for instance, have included in them the Buen Vivir philosophy: a worldview that describes a community
organized under the belief that people should coexist with nature, not exploit every inch of the Earth.
Gudynas argues that modern corporations arent made to be responsible, they are made to generate
profits. To make the latter real we need to change the manner business is made and also the way
international currencies are valuedno
longer based on one countrys currency or on one single metal.
International currencies should be organized by a block chain system that gives economic power back to the

people, not to the financial sector. The main challenge of coding the block chain system is to be smarter than
the interest that are always looking for the mechanism to be above the people, we dont have to support a
new instrument of neoliberalism and vulture investment. The block chain system has two sides: while it has
the potential to erode bank power, it might also facilitate less-than-legal transactions that hurt a government
trying to include those outside the system.

The fifth nomos

Cyberspace can be understood as a fifth nomos. Following Schmitt, the virtual world might be regarded as a
historic event that legitimates and provides meaning to the law. This legitimation, however, changes
completely when instead of being directed by the norms established by a given government where
individuals and build their political standpoint in a friend/enemy basis- the nomos is provided through an
open platform where norms are established by peers trusting collective intelligence.

After the terrorist attacks in 2001, the agencies in the United States began to apply surveillance policies in
different spheres of the civil society and the political system. These measures were enforced without any
referendum or transparent project of law written down by the Congress of the United States. There is also a
very important aspect about the NSA dismissing the sovereignty of every country and the right to privacy of
the individuals when they analyze every bit of information that passes through their servers, all thanks to
powerful mass electronic surveillance data mining programs, like PRISM. The policies applied by the NSA
were developed under the pretext that the US was in huge danger, and they needed to prevent another
terrorist attack regardless it was internal or external. This policies needed to be legitimated, so the media
began to focus on security issues, building a social paranoia around them. Max Webers classic definition,
which regards the State as a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use
of physical force within a given territory is still accurate for the XXI Century. Nevertheless, for the last twenty
years, the use of physical force has been getting more sophisticated and invisible, as there are more
government mechanisms to control all the information that is transmitted from one computer or mobile phone
to another. But surveillance is not just a problem that concerns Internet users: video surveillance takes place
in the streets of every city around the world. This is coercing our freedom; we may feel safer walking around

at night but the cost is too high, for we dont know what this companies or the government are doing with all
the information that is collected. A Magna Carta that guarantees Nets neutrality will allow platforms such as
DemocracyOS to triumph, since a free and open political involvement is only possible when all remains of
surveillance and duress are eliminated.

According to Arendt, history happens as a constant beginning, and this means its results are unforeseeable.
So beginning an action through the spoken word is to project oneself into a work where everyone participate;
it is to make oneself seen and heard and transcend in history. Historys starting point through the spoken
word is maximized through the Nets neutrality and the confidence in collective intelligence, since, following
Pierre Lvy, collective intelligence allows to step from a cartesian way of thinking based on the
singular cogito- to a collective or plural one,cogitamus. The DemocracyOS software permits all citizens to
inform themselves, debate and vote on the laws that affect them. Furthermore, since it is an open code it can
be used throughout the world without paying any fees to the programmers. Although there are opposed
viewpoints on whether the peers identity should be anonymous or, instead, be digitally verified, and even
though the latter one seems reasonable (due to the legitimacy that it brings to the new, platform-based
political space) it must be said that in a context of surveillance, and/or cultural repression, as well as the fact
that the economic stability of many depends on one or another political favor, anonymity becomes a defense
mechanism fostering freedom of speech.

The minimum conditions required for a net democracy to take place are: the access to the Internet as a right,
as well as unrestricted and simple access to public information; freedom of speech and free circulation of
information and voices and, last but not least, free education oriented towards critical thinking, creativity,
innovation and networking. It is vital to maintain the Nets neutrality and the protection of personal
information so that political expression in various platforms does not become a double-edged sword. It is not
enough to care for these minimum conditions, however, for a net democracy to occur. In order to achieve a
plural, honest and public political expression, social and economic policies to fight against inequalities should
not be omitted. A person struggling to find work or spending nine hours a day in an office or inside some
factory has less time to exercise his or her right of agency, let alone to get involved in politics regardless itd
be physically or virtually.

To have confidence in collective intelligence and apply it within the political sphere at the time of making
decisions fulfills the condition of plurality, which defines peers as equals and at the same time as unique and
one-of-a-kind. That which makes them equal is their condition of unity, hence the need for action and
speech, since the human being is the maker of his own history.

Action takes place through the exercise of agency, that places politics in the general, big picture of life, and
not merely as the specific actions of a strictly institutional surrounding. According to Giddens, the exercise of
agency includes in the legal subject not only those rights inherent to its condition as a subject, but also the
ability to self-determine, to be self-reflexive and to consciously reason. The author states that such exercise
works as a dialectic of control by the weakest to the strongest and it must take place, otherwise the condition
of agent and the control itself both get diluted. The idea of agency has direct and concurrent implications in
civil and in political life, because it is a legally formulated aspect of the human being as an autonomous,
reasonable and responsible individual (ODonnell; 2007). Like Arendt, Rancire maintains that politics exist
because of a dimension that exceeds ordinary measure, that is the active participation of those that have no
part, of those that are outside that which has been agreed upon, institutionally speaking. There is politics
when the supposedly natural law of domination is crossed by the effect of this equality. This means there is
not always politics; even that rarely do politics take place. It is a completely opposite standpoint to that of
Schmitt, who asseverate that politics is built thanks to the friend/enemy opposition.

According to Foucault, power is not something that is acquired, extracted or shared; power is practiced, like
Arendts action and Giddens exercise of agency. One of the tools to channel the participation of those that
have no part is DemocracyOS, which can guide all the uneasiness generated in street protests and various
online newspapers or forums towards the constructive force of an inclusive, democratic and collaborative
future, based upon confidence and collective intelligence. The net of the relations of power, Foucault goes
on, ends up constituting a thick weave across apparatus and institutions, not placing itself in them exactly.
Correspondingly, so does the swarm of resistance points cross social stratifications and individual units.
Undoubtedly, it is the strategic coding of those points of resistance that make a [democratic] revolution
possible.

Finally, to teach coding in primary schools is as important as motivating expression and encouraging critical
thinking in every student. It is important to teach the logical language of coding because it provides with
inclusion and collaboration to everyone that gets a forma education and, mmost of all, it exponentially
multiplies those who can control and improve said tools code. Critical thinking enriches an agents
participation and provides him/her with the chance to emancipate from any single way of thinking.