Evgeny Morozov's The Net Delusion reviewed
Authoritarian governments have turned the internet to their advantage, argues Evgeny Morozov.
Thursday, October 06 2011 || Books || BY Nevil Gibson
THE NET DELUSION
EVGENY MOROZOV
Allen Lane paperback $37
The debate over social media has gone much further than anyone can put in a book — even a digital one.
In the rush to attribute all kinds of benefits to the use of Facebook and Twitter, including the advancement of democracy and enlightenment, it was inevitable a voice of scepticism would emerge.
It surprisingly comes from a foreign policy scholar born in Belarus, a country that has failed to shake off its communist legacy.
Morozov’s case is one of conversion from what he calls ‘cyber-utopianism’ — that the internet empowers individuals in a way that can overcome police batons, surveillance cameras, handcuffs and other tools of government repression. Instead, he argues from experience in the former Soviet bloc that authoritarian governments have been able to turn the internet to their advantage. In other words, the internet empowers the strong and disempowers the weak.
“It is impossible to place the internet at the heart of the enterprise of democracy promotion without risking the success of that very enterprise,” he writes.
Bloggers are employed to spread propaganda and social networking sites searched for information on dissidents. Facebook is now a favoured source of material for use in the wider media — a purpose that was never intended.
Morozov also writes about another paradox. In the West the internet is treated as a potential threat to privacy and even physical security, but in repressive societies it is only a positive force for change.
He calls this ‘digital orientalism’ in allusion to western notions that pornography, identity theft and cyber bullying can only occur in the freedom loving West but not in heavily censored China or Russia.
Morozov has touched a nerve that defines the generations but he is also wracked with intellectual angst, at one stage despairing that “technology changes all the time, human nature hardly ever”.
His polemic overstates one case while understating the other. Many of his arguments are presented with a forthrightness not likely to be backed up by the actual, but still unknown, outcome.
THE ROAD FROM RUIN
MATTHEW BISHOP and
MICHAEL GREEN
Bloomsbury paperback $40
The sluggish recovery of North American and European economies from the global financial crisis is unusual when compared with those of previous recessions.
While many studies have correctly described and diagnosed the causes of the crisis, economists and other commentators have reached no consensus on whether the cure — expensive government bailouts — will work.
The authors, both economists, aim to fill what they call the intellectual void left by the collapse of the old conventional wisdom about the roles of the state and markets.
Their focus is on events in Britain and the outcome of last year’s election which resulted in a hung parliament and a coalition government that has started some radical measures.
These have led to a series of substantial austerity measures that have yet to yield the intended outcomes.
The authors lean more to the use of new ways of improving capitalism than to efforts to regulate the business cycle.
They extend their purview to the global scene, analysing whether the non-democratic form of capitalism as practised in China will become the norm for other developing economies.
LEADERS AND MISLEADERS
ANDRE VAN HEERDEN
Maruki Books paperback $40
The library of leadership books is large and varied. The most rewarding are those by or about successful examples. These works should provide answers to why particular decisions were made and what happened. That is why George W. Bush’s Decisions proved popular — it gave an insider’s account and further insight for the reader to make a judgment. Bush’s reputation may not yet match those in this book. Leaders and Misleaders defines good leadership as an adherence to principles and integrity. The reader is rewarded with a wide range of sources from history and personal experience. Van Heeren, who self-published this book through Hamilton-based Maruki, is no admirer of some modern business practices but is optimistic enough that the changes he advocates will benefit all.
