5 privacy - HL Surveillance technology The Universal Panopticon Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World by David D. Friedman

FIVE Read more at location 779

Note: 5@@@@@@@@@@@@@ tutto comincia in gb: e telecamere abbattono il crimine in modo prima impensabile david brin: transparent society. la società come un panopticon. la vera tesi: l alternativa al panopticon è un panopticon unidirezionale governativo. già oggi la tecnologia è strepitosa: la vita di molti potrebbe esserd ricostruitacora x ora. brin: già oggi la ns privacy nn esiste ma in modo asimmetrico: il governo ci scruta. nn possiamo tornare indietro. possiamo solo rendere il rapporto più simmetrico. telecamere ovunque: polizia pa comuni... chi custodisce i custodi? brin offre una soluzione pa soluzione brin è improbabile specie se il ctrl è deandato ai governi: ampie zone opache verrebbero lasciate soluzione brin: un tuffo nel passato. samoa. più educazione più dissimulazione il problema di brin: grande rischio. hitler e stalin sognano tanto potere altro problema: falsificazione dei video 3 tipi di privacy 1 quella che ci difende dai criminali 2 quella che protegge i criminali in fuga 3 quella relativa allo scambio 2 e 3 sono mali in genere. 1 è un bene. ma solo se la legge è giusta adam smith vs imposta sul reddito: viola la privacy nella ts di brin la criminal law sarebbe abolita? ratio della cl: se le indagini fossero tropo costose la vittima potrebbe rinunciare a xseguire lasciando molti impuniti. nella ts il costo delle indagini è azzerato. in passato la cl nn c era forse x l assenza di privacy Edit

trend began in Britain a decade ago, in the city of King's Lynn, where sixty remote controlled video cameras were installed to scan known "trouble spots," reporting directly to police headquarters. The resulting reduction in street crime exceeded all predictions;Read more at location 779

Note: x SUCCESSO INATTESO Edit

savings in patrol costsRead more at location 781

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David Brin, The Transparent Society,Read more at location 784

Note: t Edit

In the early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham, one of the oddest and most original of English thinkers, designed a prison where every prisoner could be watched at all times. He called it the Panopticon.Read more at location 784

Note: x PANOPTICON Edit

In the United States, cameras have long been used in department stores to discourage shoplifting. More recently they have begun to be used to apprehend drivers who run red lights.Read more at location 787

Note: x USI TRAD DELLE TELECAMERE Edit

Consider the problem of controlling auto emissions.Read more at location 789

Note: x USI POSSIBILI. EMISSIONI Edit

One could build a much better system using modern technology. Set up unmanned detectors that measure emissions by shining a beam of light through the exhaust plume of a passing automobile; identify the automobile by a snapshot of the license plate.Read more at location 791

Note: c Edit

Another application of large-scale surveillance already being experimented with takes advantage of the fact that cell phones continually emit positioning cues,Read more at location 793

Note: x ALTRO ES CELL. TRAFFICO INCIDENTI PERCORSI Edit

By monitoring the signals from drivers' phones, it is possible to observe traffic flows. That is very useful information if you want to advise drivers to route around a traffic jam, or locate an accident by the resulting cluster of phones. Currently it is anonymous information, locating a phone but not identifying its owner. As technology evolves that may change. Read more at location 795

Note: c Edit

Note: c Edit

Few would consider it objectionable to have a police officer wandering around a park or standing on a street corner, keeping an eye out for purse snatchers and the like. Video cameras on poles are merely a more convenient wayRead more at location 797

Note: x ALL APPARENZA NESSUN PROBLEMA Edit

What's the problem?' Read more at location 800

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A cop on the street corner may see you, he may even remember you, but he has no way of combining everything he sees with everything that every other cop sees and so reconstructing your daily life.Read more at location 800

Note: x LA TUA VITA CONOSCIUTA Edit

large fractions of your doings are an open book to anyone with access to the appropriate records.Read more at location 804

Note: c Edit

legal useRead more at location 806

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A related issue is the use of surveillance technology, legally or illegally, by private parties.Read more at location 807

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Lots of people own video cameras and those cameras are getting steadily smaller;Read more at location 807

Note: x PRIVATI Edit

The owner of a few dozen of them could collect a lot of information about his neighborsRead more at location 809

Note: c Edit

Of course technological development, in this area as in others, is likely to improve defense as well as offense.Read more at location 809

Note: x TECNO DI DIFESA Edit

We have already had court cases over whether it is or is not a search to deduce marijuana growing inside a house by using an infrared detector to measure its temperature from the outside.Read more at location 812

Note: x ES MARIU Edit

We already have technologies that make it possible to listen to a conversation by bouncing a laser beam off a windowRead more at location 813

Note: x ES CONVERSAZIONE Edit

Assume, for the moment, that the offense wins out over the defense - that preventing other people from spying on you becomes impractical. What options remain? Brin argues that privacy will no longer be one of them.Read more at location 815

Note: x TESI DI BRIN: LA PRIVACY È DESTINATA A SPARIRE Edit

He proposes as an alternative to privacy universal lack of privacy: the transparent society. The police can watch you - but someone is watching them. The entire system of video cameras, including cameras in every police station, is publicly accessible.Read more at location 817

Note: x UNICA DIFESA: TOTALIZZARE LA PERDITA Edit

Parents can keep an eye on their children, children on their parents, spouses on each other, employers on employees and vice versa, reporters on cops and politicians. Read more at location 819

Note: c Edit

The Upside of Transparency Read more at location 820

Note: t Edit

Qui custodes ipsos custodiet? "Who shall guard the guardians?" Read more at location 826

Note: x UN PROB CHE LA TS PUÓ RISOLVERE Edit

The transparent society offers a possible solution. Consider the Rodney King case. A group of policemen captured a suspect and beat him upRead more at location 826

Note: x CASO R.K Edit

Unfortunately for the police, a witness got the beating on videotape, with the result that several of the officers ended up in prison.Read more at location 828

Note: c Edit

In Brin's world, every law enforcement agent knows that he is on candid cameraRead more at location 830

Note: c Edit

But there are problems. Read more at location 831

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Selective Transparency Read more at location 831

Note: t Edit

Brin's version does not seem likely. All of the information will be flowing through machinery controlled by some level of government.Read more at location 832

Note: x QUALCUNO RESTA IN POSIZIONE DI CTRL Edit

If police are setting up cameras in police stations, they can arrange for a few areas to be accidentally left uncovered.Read more at location 834

Note: x ES POLIZIA Edit

The situation gets more interesting in a world where technological progress enables private surveillance on a wide scale, so that every location where interesting things might happen, including every police station, has flies on the wall watching what happens and reporting back to their owners.Read more at location 836

Note: x TECNOLOGIA PIENAMENTE INVASIVA Edit

information is valuable to others, it can be shared. Governments might try to restrict such sharing. But in a world of strong privacy that will be hard to do, since in such a world information transactions will be invisible to outside parties.Read more at location 839

Note: x COMMERCIO DEI DATI E CRIPTAGGIO Edit

one can imagine a future where Brin's transparent society is produced not by government but by private surveillance. Read more at location 841

Note: x SORVEGLIANZA PDIVATA Edit

The information will be produced privately only if the producer can both use it himself and sell it to others. So a key requirement for a privately generated transparent society is a well-organized market for information." Read more at location 844

Note: x PRE REQUISITO. MERCATO DELL INFO Edit

The Downside of Transparency Read more at location 845

Note: t Edit

the transparent societyRead more at location 845

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One might instead view it as a step into the past. The privacy that most of us take for granted is to a considerable degree a novelty, a product of rising incomes in recent centuries. In a world where many people shared a single residence, where a bed at the inn was likely to be shared by two or three strangers,Read more at location 846

Note: x ZERO PRIVACY. RITORNO AL PASSATO Edit

consider a primitive society such as Samoa. Multiple families share a single house -without walls.Read more at location 848

Note: x SAMOA Edit

the community is small enough to make gossipRead more at location 849

Note: c Edit

Infants are trained early on not to make noise. Adults rarely express hostility.'Read more at location 849

Note: c Edit

to communicate in code, to use words or expressions that your intimates will correctly interpret and others will not. For a milder version of the same approach, consider parents who talk to each other in a foreign language when they do not want their children to understandRead more at location 852

Note: x CODICI Edit

In Brin's future transparent society, many of us will become less willing to express our opinions of our boss, employees, ex-wife, or present husband in any public place. People will become less expressive and more self-contained, conversation bland or cryptic.Read more at location 855

Note: x IPOCRISIA Edit

WHAT IS PRIVACY AND WHY DO WE WANT IT? Read more at location 857

Note: t Edit

Think of "privacy" as shorthand for an individual's ability to control other people's access to information about him.Read more at location 858

Note: x DEF PRIVACY. CODICE Edit

I have almost complete privacy with regard to my own thoughts,Read more at location 859

Note: x INTROSPEZ Edit

If someone invented an easy and accurate way of reading minds, privacy would be radically reduced even if there were no change in my legal rights.'Read more at location 861

Note: x SCANNER. DIRITTI E FATTI Edit

The Case Against Privacy Read more at location 865

Note: t Edit

On net, is an increase in privacy good or bad?Read more at location 867

Note: x DOMANDA Edit

The reason I value my privacy is straightforward: Information about me in the hands of other people sometimes permits them to gain at my expense. They may do so by stealing my property - if, for example, they know when I will not be home.Read more at location 869

Note: x VANTAGGI PRIVACY Edit

Information about me in other people's hands may also benefit me - for example, the information that I am honest and competent. But privacy does not prevent that information from being available to them.Read more at location 872

Note: x VANTAGGI X CUI LA P. NN È NECESSARIA Edit

my privacy protects me from burglary - in which privacy produced a net benefit, since the gain to a burglar is normally less than the loss to his victim.Read more at location 874

Note: x CASO DI EFFETTO.POS Edit

One of the risks of bargaining is bargaining breakdown when a seller overestimates the price a buyer is willing to pay or a buyer makes the corresponding mistake the other way and the deal falls through, making both parties worse off than if they had each more accurately read the other.Read more at location 877

Note: x IL CASO DI BERGAIN BREAK Edit

Privacy makes it harder to know things about other peopleRead more at location 879

Note: x CONTRIB NEG PRIVACY Edit

It looks as though privacy produces, on average, a net loss in situations where parties are seeking information about each other in order to improve the terms of a voluntary transaction, since it increases the risk of bargaining breakdown.`Read more at location 880

Note: c Edit

In situations involving involuntary transactions, privacy produces a net gain if it is being used to protect other rights (assuming that those rights have been defined in a way that makes their protection desirable) and a net loss if it is being used to violate other rights (with the same assumption).Read more at location 882

Note: x CONC. BENEFICI NEGLI SCAMBI INVOL E COSTI NEGLI SCAMBI VOL Edit

Privacy and Government Read more at location 886

Note: t Edit

Governments engage in involuntary transactions on an enormously larger scale.Read more at location 890

Note: x GOVERNO E COERCIZIONE Edit

While I can protect myself from my fellow citizens with locks and burglar alarms, I can protect myself from government actors only by keeping information about me out of their hands.` Read more at location 891

Note: x PROTEGGERSI DAL GOV CON LA PRIVACY Edit

If government is the modern equivalent of Plato's philosopher-king, individual privacy simply makes it harder for government to do good. If, on the other hand, a government is merely a particularly large and well-organized criminal gang, stealing as much as it can from the rest of us, individual privacy against government as an unambiguously good thing.Read more at location 892

Note: x P. MALE SE IL GOV È BUONO Edit

Most Americans appear, judging by expressed views on privacy, to be close enough to the latter positionRead more at location 894

Note: x CHI AMA LA PRIVACY GIUDICA IMPLICIT IL GOV Edit

tax evasion. Read more at location 896

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technology could enable a tyranny that Hitler or Stalin might envy. Even if we accept Brin's optimistic assumption that the citizens are as well informed about the police as the police are about the citizens, it is the police who have the guns.Read more at location 897

Note: x CON HITLER LA SOLUZIONE BRIN NN REGGE Edit

It does not follow that Brin's prescription is wrong. His argument, after all, is that privacy will simply not be an option, either because the visible benefits of surveillance are so large or because the technology will make it impossible to prevent it. If he is right, his transparent society may at least be better than the alternativeRead more at location 900

Note: x MA IL SUO ARG. È PIÙ ARTICOLATO: NEL SUO MONDO LA P. NN È UN OPZ Edit

SAY IT AIN'T SO Read more at location 902

Note: t Edit

My wife is suing me for divorce on grounds of adultery. In support of her claim, she presents videotapes, taken by hidden cameras, that show me making love to three different women, none of them her. My attorney asks for a postponement to investigate the new evidence. When the court reconvenes, he submits his own videotape. The jury observes my wife making love, consecutively, to Humphrey Bogart, Napoleon, her attorney, and the judge. When quiet is restored in the courtroom, my attorney presents the judge with the address of the video effects firm that produced the tape. Read more at location 903

Note: x PROBLEMA DEI FALSI. ESEMPIO DEL TRADIMENTO E DEL DIVORZIO Edit

There are possible technological fixes - ways of using encryption technology to build a camera that digitally signs its output, demonstrating that that sequence was taken by that camera at a particular time.Read more at location 912

Note: x SOLUZIONE TECNOLOGOCA Edit

SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE CRIMINAL LAW? Read more at location 919

Note: t DEPENALIZZAZIONE TOTALE Edit

criminal law and tort lawRead more at location 920

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In the criminal system prosecution is controlled and funded by the state,Read more at location 921

Note: x RUOLO DELLO STATO NELLA GIUSTIZIA Edit

Criminal law provides a somewhat different range of punishmentsRead more at location 922

Note: c Edit

is there any good reason to have both? Would we, for example, be better off abolishing criminal law entirelyRead more at location 925

Note: x IL DUBBIO Edit

One argument against such a pure tort system is that some offenses are hard to detect. A victim may conclude that catching and prosecuting the offender costs more than it is worth, especially if the offender turns out not to have enough assets to pay substantial damages. Hence some categories of offense may routinely go unpunished. Read more at location 926

Note: x COSTO DELL INDAGINE E DETERRENZA Edit

In Brin's world that problem vanishes. Every mugging is on tape.Read more at location 928

Note: x LA SOC TRASP CAMBIA TUTTO Edit

The normal crime becomes very much like the normal tort - an auto accident, say, where (except in the case of hit and run, which is a crime) the identity of the party and many of the relevant facts are public information.Read more at location 930

Note: c Edit

If someone steals your car you check the video record to identify the thief, then sue for the carRead more at location 932

Note: c Edit

Like many radical ideas, this one looks less radical if one is familiar with the relevant history.Read more at location 933

Note: x STORIA Edit

Even as late as the eighteenth century, while the English legal system distinguished between torts and crimes, both were in practice privately prosecuted, usually by the victim."Read more at location 935

Note: x GB 700 Edit

One possible explanation for the shift to a modern, publicly prosecuted system of criminal law is that it was a response to the increasing anonymity that accompanied the shift to a more urban society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century."-" Technologies that reverse that shift may justify a reversal of the accompanying legal changes. Read more at location 936

Note: x CAMBIO X AVENTO ANONIMIA E CAMBIO X AVVENTO TECNOLOGIA Edit

WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE Read more at location 938

Note: t Edit

It does no good to use strong encryption for my email if a video mosquito is sitting on the wall watching me type.Read more at location 939

Note: x COMBINAZIONE ENCRIPT E TS Edit

privacy in a transparent society requires some way of guarding the interface between my realspace body and cyberspace.Read more at location 940

Note: x CORPI E CIBER Edit

A low-tech solution is to type under a hood. A high-tech solution is some link between mind and machine that does not go through the fingersRead more at location 941

Note: x SOLUZIONI A BASSA E ALTA TECH Edit

conflict between realspace transparency and cyberspace privacyRead more at location 943

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If we are sufficiently worried about other people hearing what we say, one solution is to encrypt face-to-face conversation. With suitable wireless gadgets, I talk into a throat mike or type on a virtual keyboardRead more at location 943

Note: x CONV WIRELESS Edit

We could end up in a world where physical actions are entirely public, information transactions entirely private.Read more at location 947

Note: x POSSIBILE MONDO DOMANI Edit

Private citizens will still be able to take advantage of strong privacy to locate a hit man, but hiring him may cost more than they are willing to pay, since in a sufficiently transparent world all murders are detected.Read more at location 948

Note: x CASO DEL KILLER Edit

L'odio per lo stato che avvelena i libertari

Lo stato è da sempre il nemico giurato dei libertari, questo anche se spesso le sue politiche dei governi sono di stampo libertario.

[… attingo da William D. Eggers & John O'Leary: “Reasons Why Libertarians Shouldn't Hate Government”…]

Prendiamo la lotta all'inflazione...

... inflation has come down from unacceptable levels in the 1970s to an eminently livable situation...

Oppure le minori tasse per i ricchi...

... Marginal tax rates have fallen from 70 percent to below 40 percent....

O il vasto programma di privatizzazioni degli anni passati...

... There has not been a major cry to nationalize or otherwise cripple the hi-tech sector....

O la deregolamentazione della finanza...

... Private capital markets have become more advanced, more liquid, and better able to fund new ideas....

O la lotta al  comunismo...

... on a global scale communism has fallen... few American politicians advocate central planning or an economy built around collective bargaining. Marxism has retreated in intellectual disgrace....

Domanda retorica: che fine farebbe l'austerity dei nostri giorni se non fosse strenuamente difesa dai governi in carica e dai burocrati di Bruxelles?

Lo stato ha garantito anche molte libertà positive (opportunità) che magari il libertario “duro e puro” non vede con simpatia ma che indubbiamente migliorano la vita di tutti...

... much greater liberty, at least in the positive sense of greater life opportunities....

In fondo, i danni che lo stato crea possiamo permetterceli proprio grazie alle concessioni che lui stesso ha fatto al mercato...

... The more wealth we have, the more government we can afford...

Da qui il paradosso libertario...

... the better government operates, the more government people will demand. That is the fundamental paradox of libertarianism. Many initial victories bring later defeats....

Vediamo qual è il ciscuito sottostante: i libertari evangelizzano, i governi si convertono operando in modo più razionale e la gente, visti i buoni risultati, vuole più stato.

Il mondo di domani:

... We should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government...

Accettiamo allora più governo: fa parte del "pacchetto" che comprende anche più libertà, più mercato e quindi più ricchezza.

[… ma c'è anche un canale parallelo più specifico da cui si genera il paradosso: più innovazione, più tecnologia disponibile per il controllo, più stato...]

... We don’t have to favor the growth in government per se, but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal...

Il nuovo motto...

... The motto— “liberty is good”— is the more important.... advances in liberty bring bigger government.”...

Conclusione: la libertà di mercato genera ricchezza che porta più stato: prendere o lasciare. E “lasciare” è folle.

Anche dal punto di vista intellettuale, quello del libertario antistatalista ormai è un  piagnisteo ripetitivo che nessuno ascolta più...

... much of libertarianism has become a series of complaints...  the welfare state is here to stay,...

Molti libertari hanno trasformato la libertà da mezzo a fine. Ma questa scala di valori spesso non coincide con quella delle persone a cui si rivolge...

... seeing positive liberty (“what can I do with my life?”) as more important than negative liberty (“how many regulations are imposed on me?”)....

In molte aree cruciali per il nostro futuro lo stato può e deve dare il sul contributo: brevetti, diritti d'autore, riscaldamento globale, pandemie, politica estera, nucleare...

... I worry about pandemics and natural disasters, as well as global warming and climate change more generally (it doesn’t have to be carbon-induced to be a problem). These developments are big threats to the liberty of many people in the world, although not necessarily Americans. The best answers to these problems don’t always lie on the old liberty/power spectrum in a simple way. Defining property rights in clean air, or in a regular climate, isn’t that easy and it probably cannot be done without significant state intervention... Intellectual property in vaccines and drug patents also will become an increasingly critical issue on a global scale.... More and more economic value is being held in the form of intellectual property.... Another major problem– the major problem in my view– is nuclear proliferation...

Il libertario duro e puro è allo stesso tempo radicale e prevedibile...

... We would run the risk of being too kooky and too mainstream at the same time...

I suoi libri sono perfetti ma leggendoli non si impara mai niente, sono tutti uguali...

... Brian Doherty’s wonderful book.... what I liked most about the book was how little I learned from it....

Sono finiti i bei tempi della guerra al comunismo, quando il messaggio antistatalista girava a meraviglia...

... The book hearkens back to those good old days when the nature of the fight, “liberty vs. power,” was really quite clear. America in the mid to late 1970s was a wreck, and libertarians indeed had a lot of the right answers....

L'atteggiamento libertario spesso diventa addirittura inviso...

... “I don’t want to make government work better, I want it to go away"...

Il fallimento della scuola pubblica o della Rai, per esempio, sono per lui  occasione di festa: sente la privatizzazione è più vicina! Ma questo atteggiamento da "gufo" gli aliena inevitabilmente l'empatia della massa.

Nel suo Pantheon il libertario venera eroi - esempio  i Padri fondatori della democrazia americana - che non avevano certo un atteggiamento simile...

... Our Founding Fathers, fondly quoted by limited-government advocates, didn’t view government as evil, but as a flawed institution with some important jobs to do...

Il governo era temuto e limitato ma nessuno pensava di liberarsene o di farlo funzionare male per avere la scusa per liberarsene.

Ecco allora alcune ragioni per "amare" il potere politico.

Cattivi governi accrescono la domanda di governo. Sembra strano ma è così. La questione del resto è empirica...

... the less citizens trust government, the less willing they should be to give it big new responsibilities, right? Wrong. An important recent academic study called “Regulation and Distrust” shows that, paradoxically, the worse government performs, the more citizens demand greater government intervention...

Perchè? Forse, per un’illusione cognitiva, gli errori della politica ci appaiono talmente macroscopici che ci sembra facile correggerli (con un po' di potere in più nelle mani giuste).

Per andare al governo (e limitarlo) bisogna “amarlo”.

La Sinistra lo ama visceralmente, non c'è dubbio, la politica è la sua passione, cosicché la politica e i giornali che si occupano di politica registrano un persistente e fastidioso bias a sinistra...

... liberals believe deeply in government. As a result, they sit on school boards, city councils, and regional planning boards...

Destra e libertari hanno invece altre passioni...

... Many conservatives and libertarians come from the world of business... Once in power, they tend to have far more difficulty... most high-profile attempts to shrink government fail...

Le riforme di mercato non si fanno da sole, bisogna progettarle ed è un lavoro duro.

Privatizzare è difficile e se sbagli i "nemici" ti fanno a polpette. Immaginatevi solo una privatizzazione dell'acqua andata male! C'è chi non aspetta altro per scatenarsi...

... what happened when California actually tried electricity deregulation? Within just a few years, the new law caused soaring prices, rolling blackouts, and the recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Consumers lost billions.... energy companies such as Enron exploited design flaws...

Fare i "gufi" ci rende antipatici. Non si può godere impunemente delle disgrazie altrui...

... Incessant government-bashing may make you feel good, but alienates most everybody who knows and loves a police officer, firefighter, teacher, social worker, anyone who has ever collected an unemployment check...

Nessuno ti ascolta se trasudi solo disprezzo. La gente vuole competenza, non disprezzo...

... Many voters today may indeed want smaller government, but what they want most of all is competent government... free-marketers also need to communicate a genuine interest in the effective performance...

La gente vuole "felicità", non "libertà" fine a se stessa. Per i più la libertà è un mezzo per essere felici, non un fine. Giusto o sbagliato che sia, per molti essere schiavi trattati con i guanti dai rispettivi padroni è preferibile che essere liberi e in balia degli eventi. Questo è un fatto.

D'altronde, non si può negare che molti progetti della politica sino stati dei successi di portata storica...

1. Democratic Reconstruction in Japan Post WWII....

2. The Marshall Plan. Aid to rebuild Europe following WWII...

3. The Apollo Moon Landings. A come-from-behind win in the space race. On time, on budget, and 40 years later still never repeated. A strong head of NASA, James Webb, and a start-up culture made this incredibly audacious effort reality...

4. 1996 Welfare Reform. Put time limits on welfare benefits and encouraged work rather than dependence. Based on a program in Wisconsin, a good example of building off the demonstrated success of our nation's laboratories of democracy—the states. Cut welfare rolls by more than 50 percent in many states...

Naturalmente ci sono anche molti fallimenti...

1. Hurricane Katrina. The failure of the Corps' to adequately prepare was less visible but just as disastrous as the Keystone Cops response

2. NASA's Shuttle Tragedies.

3. Democratic Reconstruction in Iraq

4. The 1970s War on Inflation...

E allora non resta che giudicare caso per caso avendo la consapevolezza che "a volte le cose vanno in un senso, a volte nell'altro".

Ribelli in vendita

Selling Out - You are Not So Smart by David McRaney

Molti “ribelli” moderni finiscono per diventare un brand. L’errore è quello di considerare tutto questo un paradosso quando invece si tratta della loro sorte naturale. Sbagliarsi su questo punto significa non cogliere l’ “essenza del capitalismo”.

L'illusione ottica...

... Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising...

La credenza corretta...

... Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status...

Insomma, il capitalismo non si fonderebbe sui fantomatici bisogni indotti ma sulla competizione tra consumatori.

Ok, ma come si arriva da qui al fatto che il ribelle è destinato alla mercificazione. Calma, un passo alla volta.

Il venditore è sempre in cerca di novità: i ribelli all'ordine costituito – con le loro proposte innovative – sono quindi per lui una miniera d'oro...

... Beatniks, hippies, punk rockers, grunge rats, metal heads, goth kids, hipsters...

Tutti noi attraversiamo una fase giovanile di ribellione...

... Whether you lived through the Summer of Love or South Park, somewhere in your youth you started to realize who was in control, and you rebelled... you sought out something real, something with meaning...

Si tratta di un periodo molto creativo, e spesso sono proprio quelle idee che verranno commercializzate domani. L' esempio del punk...

... Think about an archetypal punk rocker with chains and spikes, gaudy pants and a leather jacket. Yeah, he bought all of those clothes. Someone is making money off of his revolt. That’s the paradox of consumer rebellion—everything is part of the system...

Il "venditore" non aspetta altro: nuove idee per rinnovare completamente il "guardaroba" (e non solo) di una generazione...

...  Every niche opened by rebellion against the mainstream is immediately filled by entrepreneurs who figure out how to make a buck off those who are trying to avoid what the majority of people are buying...

Il cinema recente offre uno spaccato di cultura "contro" che rende benone al botteghino...

... Fight Club, American Beauty, Fast Food Nation, The Corporation, etc. The creators of these works may have had the best intentions, but their work still became a product designed for profit...

Ma anche tra artisti e scrittori il fenomeno è ben evidente...

... Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Cobain, Christopher Hitchens—they may have been solely concerned with creating art or illustrating academic principles, but once their output fell into the marketplace, it found its audience, and that audience made them wealthy...

Le t-shirt con Che Guevara sono un classico e "Imagine" di John Lenon, da inno comunista e visionario, è diventata in un amen la muzak ideale per accompagnare gli acquisti al centro commerciale. E, restando in Italia, che dire di Pasolini? L' uomo che denunciò in largo e in lungo lo “sviluppo” facendo la gioia dei suoi editori e del PIL. Paradossi? No, casi di scuola per capire la macchina capitalistica.

Il libro che meglio ha sviscerato il fenomeno: The Rebel Sell di Joseph Heath e Andrew Potter. La tesi...

... you can’t rage against the machine through rebellious consumption....

Non esistono "consumi alternativi". Solo consumi da reinventare continuamente.

Secondo la vulgata bisogna "omologare" per vendere meglio...

... All the interconnected institutions in the marketplace need everyone to conform in order to sell the most products to the most people...

Corollario: ci si salva solo uscendo dal mainstream...

... To escape consumerism and conformity, you must turn your back and ignore the mainstream culture...

Sbagliatissimo, il mercato prospera proprio grazie al "diverso". I mercanti amano e ricercano l' "alternativo", se la giostra riparte sono i primi a beneficiarne...

... The problem, say Heath and Potter, is the system doesn’t give a shit about conformity. In fact, it loves diversity and needs people like hipsters and music snobs so it can thrive...

La parabola di una band indie...

... For example, say there is this awesome band no one knows about except you and a few others. They don’t have a record contract or an album. They just go out there and play, and they are great. You tell everyone about them as they build a decent fan base. They make an album that sells enough copies to allow them to quit their day jobs. That album gets them more gigs and more fans. Soon they have a huge fan base and get a record contract and get on the radio and play on prime time. Now they’ve sold out...

Altri esempi presi a  caso qua e là...

... In the 1960s, it took months before someone figured out they could sell tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms to anyone who wanted to rebel. In the 1990s, it took weeks to start selling flannel shirts and Doc Martens to anyone anywhere....

Le corporation sguinzagliano i loro osservatori nei centri sociali per capire meglio le tendenze del futuro...

... Now people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and observe what the counterculture is into... The counterculture, the indie fans, and the underground stars—they are the driving force behind capitalism...

Ora l'essenza del capitalismo dovrebbe essere più chiara...

... This brings us to the point: Competition among consumers is the turbine of capitalism...

Cerchiamo di essere i più fighi, e su questa nostra ambizione gira la macchina degli affari...

... As Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like, pointed out in a radio interview, you compete with your peers by one-upping them. You attain status by having better taste in movies and music, by owning more authentic furniture and clothing...so you reveal your unique character through your consumption habits...

Ma è difficile essere i più fighi intruppandosi nella massa, da qui l'ossessione per l'autenticità...

... your desire for authenticity is what moves these items and artists and services and goods up from the bottom to the top—where they can be mass-consumed...

Passata un’ onda si attende la prossima con ansia, e gli innovatori ribelli al conformismo sono proprio quelli che più garantiscono questo dinamismo... "siano benedetti" pensa il mondo del business...

... It is ironic in the sense the very act of trying to run counter to the culture is what creates the next wave of culture people will in turn attempt to counter...

La merce non ha solo un valore intrinseco...

... The value, then, is not intrinsic. The thing itself doesn’t have as much value as the perception of how it was obtained or why it is possessed...

La merce serve anche per competere e nel capitalismo la competizione tra consumatori relativa allo status conta più di quella tra imprese...

... Competition for status is built into the human experience at the biological level. Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The wealthy compete with possessions...